22nd May, 2020
Farmers in Akwa Ibom are in for a better time as the State Government has given incentives which include 10 tractors to them to boost farming activities.
The disclosure was made to newsmen in Uyo on Friday by the state Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Glory Edet.
She added that the state has empowered many farmers with interest-free loan of N100, 000 each to cultivate farms.
“The state governor has bought 10 tractors for farmers in the state in order to promote Fadama programmes which would round off in June this year.
“There are some that may be willing to cultivate larger portions of land but cannot do so because of financial constraints, so what government has done is to assist farmers so that next year, we will have more food”, Edet told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
According to her, government started dishing out the loans to vegetable farmers in the state about six months ago. The money, she said, was paid directly to bank accounts of the farmers who had filled application forms.
She explained that the tractor operators had been sent to the three Senatorial Districts of Eket, Uyo and Ikot Ekpene to clear, plough and prepare the land for planting.
She added that the state government had also given seedlings, cassava cottons, agro chemicals, among others to farmers in the state.
The capacity to access the incentives, according to her, depends on size of the farm a farmer is cultivating.
She also informed that government was seriously promoting coconut farming in the state.