Daura LG registers 6,000 rice farmers for dry season farming

The Daura Local Government chapter of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) says it has commenced registration of 6,000 farmers that will benefit from the dry season anchor borrowers agricultural programme.

Malam Nura Baure, the chapter’s Chairman, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Daura on Monday.

He said the chapter had since started distribution of registration forms to interested farmers for their eventual capture into the programme.

He said each form must be endorsed by a magistrate, district head and a reliable guarantor who stood for an individual or organisation of farmers before one would be qualified for the loan.

He said the farmers would be provided with fertilisers, insecticide and herbicides, seedlings, sprayers and water pumping machines

He said the number of hectares registered by an individual farmer determined the quantity of inputs a farmer would receive.

Baure called on the 1,600 rice farmers who benefited from the programme’s agricultural inputs during the last dry season farming to hasten repayment of the loan, stressing that failure to comply would attract sanction.

He said the repayment period of the facility was one year and farmers were expected to repay with bags of paddy rice or cash where possible but in accordance with the current market value of a bag of paddy rice.

NAN reports that the Daura chapter of RIFAN has so far registered 10,500 farmers in the area since inception of the programme in the last three years.