At least one million farmers in the South East region have registered with the National Association for Promotion of Agriculture and Food Security Department of Farmers Council, NAAFS-NFC.
Out of the number, over 700, 000 have been credited in their wallet with a monthly stipend of $100 USD for improvement in their agricultural practices to ensure food sufficiency and security as well as general prosperity by restoring the dignity of Agriculture in Nigeria.
NAAFS-NFC zonal Director for South East, Mrs. Indiana Nnwaokike made the disclosure during the official unveiling of the south chapter of the association in Enugu, on Thursday.
Nnwokike stated that the association has trained officers located in communities, churches, markets and community heads such as traditional rulers who supervise the agricultural intervention programme in the rural communities.
She noted that the farming palliative is intended to make farming attractive in a manner that everybody would like to get into farming, stating that the south east zone has a target of 10 million farmers as beneficiaries of the agric palliative.
“If you check out the number of persons that have money in their wallets, if I check from our data, it’s nothing short of 700, 000 have money in their wallets, out of approximately one million farmers that have registered; because if you register today, on the 28 of the month, if your wallet has been created, you are credited with 100 dollars.
“The issue however is the community development, the issue is how to change your mind on what you do, because we’ve been getting money but what have we been doing with the money we get. Men get money and they marry more wives and take more titles and do things they never imagined. Some women get money and they run away from their husbands’ homes, that means we don’t know what to do with this money,” Nnwokike said.
The Executive Secretary and Founder of NAAFS-NFC, Dr. Josef Okim stated that the programme aims at achieving food security in an environment where everybody have the opportunity of feeding, noting that the Nigeria farmers Council’s partnership with the African Kingdom Federation, AKF, was an approach to strategically return to Africa heritage using agriculture.
Okim disclosed that the programme aims at developing an information system for Nigeria farmers, categorized in traditional kingdoms that help to identify real farmers in every given community.
“Sometimes, interventions come up from the government but who are the end users, the beneficiaries of these interventions? So strategically, we are developing an information system so that when interventions are being given, the organization stands as an intermediary to make the linkage between farmers and government,” Okim said.