Plateau govt woos farmers over agric facility

OVER 100,000 farmers have keyed into anchor borrowers scheme project of Federal Government Agriculture Bank loan who registered for 2016 fiscal year.
Addressing farmers, Hon Commissioner for Agriculture, Mrs Linda Barau disclosed this during a harmonization meeting with stakeholders at the Conference Hall, state secretariat Joseph Gomwalk
.
The government, she said wants to drive the economy through agriculture to give great emphasis of encouraging farmers to register with the ongoing anchor borrowers scheme to achieve food sufficiency in the state.
She advocated a drive that government will soon introduce price control mechanism in all the 17 local governments to limit activities of middle-men who are posing a great danger to the local farmers.
Hon Barau lauded Governor Lalong government for giving priority to agriculture in repositioning the dwindling economic recession facing the country.
The commissioner expressed sadness that lack of adequate information has crippled the ongoing government registration of farmers, so very soon government is planning to hold town hall meeting in all the 17 LGAs to enlighten and teach farmers to prepare for challenges of borrowing.
She advised chairmen of the various agricultural products to educate other farmers on the importance of agriculture but condemned a situation where farmers sell their farm produce before the harvesting period expires.
The convener of the meeting, Chairman promotion commodities interest of all Plateau state farmers,Mr Joshua Bitrus advocated that government should invest in buying all the crops to prevent middle men from creating unnecessary hardship for buying post harvest to prevent loses.
He solicited for government moving towards advance ways of agriculture by knowing that we must harmonize to stop the activities of middle men by calling on the farmers to embark on wider consultation on information sharing.
Bitrus complained that it is quite disheartening the rate at which farmers are selling their farm products, we need to talk to our farmers because the rate of post harvest loses is looming ahead if nothing is done to stop the ugly trend.