Ebonyi, Ekiti, Imo, Ogun, Oyo get FG’s bail-out funds
Ebonyi State News
Sept 18 2015
To boost rice production in Ebonyi State, the government has procured mechanised equipment
to be distributed to farmers. The state governor, David Umahi at an event organised at the State University permanent site,
Abakaliki to test-run the equipment, said his administration would also introduce irrigation farming soon.
Chief Umahi gave the state Ministry of Agriculture and the Faculty of Agriculture at Ebonyi State University two weeks to
test-run the equipment on all the available arable farmland in the university. He said government was ready to provide all
the funds needed.
While reaffirming his administration’s commitment to turn around the fortunes of the state through rice production, Governor
Umahi said that his government would purchase three bulldozers to boost farming activities. He stated that the Agricultural
equipment will be thoroughly tested before handing it over to local council for proper management. In her address, the chairman
of the occasion and provost, Federal College of Agriculture, Ishiagu, Prof (Mrs) Justina U. Mgbada assured the farmers of regular
training on the use of the equipment and expressed her confidence that with the introduction of mechanised Agriculture in the
state, youths would start to engage the farmers to make effective use of the equipments.
In a speech, the state Commissioner for Agriculture, Barrister Uchenna Orji observed that the event was the practical
“manifestation of the political will of the state governor, Chief David Umahi to mechanize and commercialize Agriculture in
the state.”
He stated that the event was to train the farmers on the use of farm machinery to attain the full accomplishment of the
state governments desired to make Agriculture the hub of the state economy. Good will messages were delivered by the
representative of the permanent secretary, federal ministry of Agriculture; the forum of agricultural cooperative societies
in Ebonyi State, and the representative of the university community. Some of the equipment demonstrated at the occasion
include; manual, power tiller, manual transplanter, weeder, motorized transplanter, power tiller and grain winnower.