By Ahmed Ilallah
The current administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s transformation on agriculture has signaled that Jigawa State has a key and significant stake in enhancing food security in the country, the administration depends hugely on Jigawa State for wheat and rice production.
Jigawa State is an agricultural potential state, the agricultural production in the state in recent years has grown the state GDP to about 5 trillion naira as of 2023 against less than one trillion in 2015.
Farming became successful in the state because the state was enriched with fertile land for wheat and rice production, Hadejia Irrigation Scheme is the most functional in the country. Jigawa is among the most peaceful states in the north.
Recently, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari pronounced that, the federal government will cultivate 70,000 hectares of wheat during the dry season in Jigawa, during his ministry’s facts-finding tours.
For this process, Jigawa State allocated 70,000 hectares of land to the ministry for wheat cultivation.
The Minister noted this and acknowledged that the decision to start the demonstration farms in Jigawa was informed by Governor Umar Namadi’s zeal and commitment towards making the state one of the leading wheat growers in the country.
President Bola Tinubu reaffirmed the significance of Jigawa State and ensured the contingent on Jigawa in his New Year address to Nigerians on food security that, Jigawa State will cultivate 150 hectares of wheat in this year’s season farming.
But, will Governor Umar Namadi and the Jigawa People meet the expectations of the Federal Government?
However, one of the key points agenda of Malam Umar Namadi is agricultural transformation.
His commitment in his early days in office signifies perfect results at the end. At the last rainy season, he reduced the price of fertilizer by over 30 percent, to enable the farmers to have access to it.
The major problem facing farmers’ productivity in Jigawa State and the country in general, is the high cost of fertilizer and other important farm inputs.
From 2011 to 2015, the price of fertilizers like NPK and Urea was around eleven thousand naira to twelve thousand naira, but the price has grown to about twenty thousands to twenty-five thousand naira at present.
The high cost of fertilizer has seriously reduced the farmer’s access to fertilizer and it has significantly reduced agricultural production in the state.
But, the initiation of the Jigawa State Governor for the fertilizer subsidy in the state has reborn the government’s commitment to enhancing agricultural production.
The recent subsidy of fifty percent of fertilizer and farm inputs for this season’s wheat farming across the country by the federal government, where the program was launched in Jigawa State, and produced output is highly expected from the State, as explained above.
In addition, the intervention of the state Governor to allow the cluster farmers to access the inputs on credit has exposed the zeal of the Governor for his farmers to be more active.
However, all these inputs and commitments will only produce positive results if there is a good partnership between all the stakeholders at the farm level.
The important stakeholders are the farmers, the extension workers who will be guiding the farmers in professional ways, and the monitors from the state and federal levels.
Most important is the commitment of the farmers and their readiness to work with their extension workers.
