taharqa: Was it not dis same Aregbe who rejected and frustrated d FG's Fertilizer programme in his state, just like he did to SURE-P's Employment Scheme, simply for parochial political reasons?? Other Govs, like that of Delta, and many others who participated in d conference, acknowledged General working of d New Fertilizer Scheme; why is Osun State different??

Sincere 9gerian: I even wonder why they invited that rascal governor to the programme. I hate it when people play politics with everything. I watched the house of reps public hearing on the GES scheme and the members of house of reps, across party lines, were full of praise for the e-wallet fertilizer distribution system. It is not enough for Aregbe to tell the world that he spent N1billion to purchase fertilizer. He should tell us how much from the N1billion was lost to inflated contracts. Of the quantity eventually bought, how many bags went to real farmers and at what cost, and how many was diverted to political farmers.

ballabriggs: These are farmers, not from Osun state but from other states of Nigeria. Aregbe no get, farmer no see, OVOKO!!! Has the fertiliser been supplied to Abubakar Shekau to make ogbunigwe?

Sokoto State
In Sokoto, many of the farmers say they are yet to get fertilizer from the federal government's GES programme.
Secretary, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Sokoto State, Kabiru Aliyu said, "We registered for the programme, but we are yet to be given fertilizer. We discovered that some people who were not registered have been given."
He called on the federal government to always ensure that targeted people are the actual beneficiaries of such programmes.
On the phones government promised to distribute to farmers, he also said they have not received any.
The price of a bag of fertilizer at the open market is between N4,000 and N5,000.

Kwara State
Most of the farmers who spoke with our correspondent in Ilorin confirmed that they are yet to get fertilizer either from the federal or state government.
It has, however, been gathered that since government is not forthcoming, many farmers are now settling for organic fertilizer procured at the rate of N1,200 and N1,500 per bag.
Last year, the government distributed the commodity to farmers at a subsidized rate of N2,500 per bag but the farmers lamented that they are in the dark on government's plan for the year, especially when the rain has finally sets in. It was gathered that a bag of inorganic fertilizer is sold at the rate of N5,300 to N5, 800 at the open market
The chairman of AFAN in Kwara State, Alhaji Hassan Abdullahi, confirmed that they are yet to get fertilizer from government and lamented the delay in the distribution of the commodity. He disclosed that at least 65 per cent of farmers, which cut across the 16 local government areas of the state have registered in anticipation of fertilizer but they are not sure when they are going to get the items.
Also speaking, the Secretary of Youth Farmers' Association, Mr. Kehinde Osasona, who also confirmed that they are yet to receive the commodity, expressed dismay that fertilizers often ended up in the hands of "political farmers" who after getting it from government sell at higher prices to the real farmers.
"Majority of farmers are on the verge of settling for inorganic fertilizer instead of relying on government supply since we are not sure of when we are to get it from government. So, most of the farmers are settling for inorganic fertilizer made of leafy materials and at times animal waste because we apply fertilizer during pre-planting operation. So, we cannot continue to rely on government fertilizer which is not forthcoming", he said.

Kogi State
In Kogi State, farmers are yet to get fertilizers through the Growth Enhancement System (GES) of the federal government which is supposed to make the commodity available to farmers across the country.
A farmer in the state, Dr Tunde Oransaya, said the second phase of the registration of farmers for the scheme in state was concluded last week, saying that over 50,000 farmers have been captured in the state so far.
It was gathered that 50kg NPK fertilizer is sold at N5,800 while 50kg Urea fertilizer cost N5,200 in the open market.
Niger State
Farmers in the state are no longer confident that the federal government's Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) will work considering the fact that activities for this year's farming season have since begun but distribution of fertilizer under the programme is yet to take off.
One of the farmers on the programme, Nuhu Danyaya Aliyu said that right from inception the programme was not conceived to succeed, saying he was at the registration centre for under the programme in his ward in Kontagora, headquarters of Kontagora LGA four times but on each occasion there was nobody to attend to him at the centre.
He lamented that when he made a formal complaint to the councillor of his ward over the absence of the enumerators at the centre, he was only told that the officials would soon resume and that he would get registered but that to date he has not been registered.
Aliyu further added that if they could not be registered as directed, then it became glaring that the much talked about distribution of handsets through which farmers were expected to access fertilizer this year will be a mirage.
He said even last year when he was fully registered, he got only a bag of fertilizer which, he said, was grossly inadequate despite the fact that he is a small farmer, arguing that if the trait of unavailability of fertilizer continued unchecked the country is heading for famine.
On market prices of fertilizer in his area, Aliyu said a bag of fertilizer cost between N5,000 and N5,500 adding that those that could not afford a bag bought in measures (mudu) which cost between N200 to N300.
When contacted on the scheme, State Chairman of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) Umar Aliyu, said registration under GES programme was ongoing as more forms were made available to farmers by the Federal Government.
He said the price of fertilizer per bag across the state was in the range of N5,000 to N6000 depending on the company that manufactured the product.

Kebbi State
The case is not different in Kebbi State. Alhaji Usman Muhammad Dan'inna, a farmer in Bahago in Zuru Local Government Area disclosed in his farm that, "the phone number that was registered in my name was duplicated to another person in Katsina who refused to turn up the code number after several calls and pleas.
"Last year, I managed to get two bags of the fertilizer at the cost of N3,000 and a bag of corn. My farmland is over 10 hectares, so how do you expect me to continue to wait in vain for government fertilizer? So,I have no choice than to buy in the market at the cost of N5,000 instead of waiting in vain for the so-called government supply at N1,700 but which is not there."
He said that why he resorted to farming groundnut that does not need much of fertilizer and little of corn, rice and millet that need more fertilizer.
"This is the right time in the month of May when we are supposed to start getting fertilizer from the federal government's GES programme, but up till now, we are yet to get any. It will be too late and of no use to farmers by August.
"In fact, I had to re-sell the two bags I got last year because it came very late during the farming season.
"Prayer is the only solution to the problem because even the distribution at the local governments only worsens the situation," he said.
A 40-year-old farmer, Mallam Rabiu Aliyu, who has been farming for over 17 years in Badariya area of Birnin Kebbi Local Government said, "The fertilizer was distributed last year but most of us did not get it.
"We were told to expect three bags of the fertilizer will be sold to each farmer at government controlled prize of N1,500 per bag. The three bags were said to be accompanied with a free bag of rice seedlings and pest control chemicals that is expected to also serve as fertilizer.
"Even at that, the three bags cannot be enough to apply to the 20 hectare of my farmland.
"Each bag of the fertilizer sells for between N4,500 to N5,000 in the market and farmers have no choice that to buy at that rate," he said.

Plateau State
In Jos, farmers said although fertilizer, which is a significant input expected to be supplied through the scheme should have arrived by February or March for this year's wet season farming, it is yet to be seen.
"Those implementing the programme came to carry out registration of farmers early last month for the 2013 farming season, so we don't know right now when fertilizer will come although it is already very late for wet season farming," Jos North chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr Sako Danboyi told Daily Trust.
The Growth Enhancement Support Scheme started in Plateau State last year when fertilizer was supplied in September, clearly an off-season intervention for wet season farming when most farmers need fertilizer, and supplied at well below the needs of farmers. Danboyi explained, "I got the phone message for my fertilizer allocation on August 31, 2012 but I didn't get the fertilizer until two weeks later. I got two bags, like every other farmer. For many of us, what is two bags of fertilizer each?
"Part of the problem of GES is that many of our members have no phone," Danboyi said.
Asked about the promise of phones as component of GES, he said, "We heard from unofficial sources that a phone is supposed to be part of the scheme, but we've not seen that yet."
According to another Plateau farmer, Mohammed Fodio, GES is a good programme being badly implemented. Fodio who, incidentally, is the Jos North Secretary of AFAN said there is a huge difference in price of fertilizer supplied through GES and fertilizer in the open market.
"Fertilizer from GES last year was N2,500 and that was when fertilizer was going for between N5000 and N5500," Fodio recalled.
The farmers do not know how much the product will cost from GES this year as the government is yet to make it available, but the market price of fertilizer in Plateau State is currently between N6,000 and N6,500.

Taraba State
As this year's farming season begins, farmers in Taraba State said they are yet to get the GES fertilizers from the federal government to apply on their crops.
A farmer in Takum Local Government Area, Samuel Tortee complained that farmers in the area are yet to get subsidised fertilizers and other agro-allied chemicals from the government.
He said that most farmers buy fertilizers and other chemicals from the open market as they could hardly depend on the one supplied by the government.
Another farmer in Jalingo, Paul Gaza, said many farmers were registered by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in the state this year and they had expected the distribution of fertilizers before now, but nothing seems to be happening yet.
He said that farmers are yet to get the much talked about phones which the minister of agriculture promised farmers.
According to him, farmers need fertilizers to apply on their crops especially yams, maize and rice between now and latest July, adding that anything from August and beyond, fertilizers would no longer be useful to them.
He lamented that government most times supply fertilizers around September and October when they will not be useful to farmers.
Gaza said that farmers spend as much as N6,000 to purchase a bag of fertilizer at the open market.
However, the Special Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Olukayode Oyeleye, has explained that the delay in the distribution of the fertilizer is because the ministry wants to address the problems encountered in the scheme last year and to also avoid diversion of the commodity.
He said the distribution will soon start, though he could not give a date for it.
On the 10 millions phones for farmers, the minister's aide said the programme, which is grossly misunderstood, is on course. But he couldn't tell when the phones would be distributed or how much they would cost.
He said when the minister visited Suru, a rice farming community in Kebbi State, the need for mobile phones for farmers became more glaring.
READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/33525.html

taharqa: Was it not dis same Aregbe who rejected and frustrated d FG's Fertilizer programme in his state, just like he did to SURE-P's Employment Scheme, simply for parochial political reasons?? Other Govs, like that of Delta, and many others who participated in d conference, acknowledged General working of d New Fertilizer Scheme; why is Osun State different??

Obiagelli:


@red how else do you measure success of the scheme if not price and availability of our major produce? Is it by grammar.

@ green is the joke not on the minister? Osun has empowered its farmers by creating a market for them, more people are obvious taking to farming and do not be surprised when they start exporting produce. Common sense is set the market rolling, make farming lucrative and let others take the left over (export)

rainbowman: From what I could discern from the Summit, the FG has its own over agenda on Agriculture and its up to states to tap in to this overall programme as it suits them. It is about vertical and horizontal integration and the main beneficiaries are the people. The minister further said that he just organized a meeting with all Agric Commissioners of which the Osun State Commissioner was a participant and 97 % if captured Osun farmers benefited from the GES scheme amounting to 58,000 or so farmers. In my opinion I detect a disconnect between his Excellency and his advisers. More so his speech at the end of the session was at best grandstanding as he contradicted himself so many times. I would suggest State Governments rather that throwing away the baby and bath water should key into this scheme to get credit for the business farmers and generally improve the livelihood of the citizenry. I must say, I was genuinely excited from what I watched however on the downside some of the foreign investors expressed their disappointment on the difficulty in getting import waivers for agric machinery, poor state of infrastructure and some government policies. I felt that this could have been highlighted by the newspapers rather than the Aregbesola issue.

Guk: I have a personal feeling that he Minister of Agric's Measurement/Metrics Information System is faulty but i may be wrong. He said we have achieved 33% production of rice meaning that every 1 in 3 bags of rice is produced in Nigeria.

Have you seen that reflected in the markets and stores you patronise for rice?

Has the 1 in 3 bags threatned or even forced down the price of the 2 in 3 still imported?

#justwonderingsha

Goddex:

Quite a high percentage of the rice you find in our markets today which you call "foreign rice" is actually produced locally. Yes, this may surprise you, abi? Forget the pranks our market men/women play by bagging them in foreign brands - such as Uncle Bens, Mama Gold, Stalion, Cap etc. All na lie lie. . .

maakano:
Was it not dis same Aregbe who rejected and frustrated d FG's Fertilizer programme in his state, just like he did to SURE-P's Employment Scheme, simply for parochial political reasons?? Other Govs, like that of Delta, and many others who participated in d conference, acknowledged General working of d New Fertilizer Scheme; why is Osun State different??
(Quote) (Report) (Like)

The answer to your question is that maybe it was only in Osun that GEJ did not win the presidential election in 2011. PDP as a party do not history of tolerating opposition and they will do anything to punish a dissenting person, persons, or even state

rainbowman: I watched the State Governors session yesterday, though, I missed the keynote address from the Honourable Minister of Agriculture. From what I gathered, however, I discovered that the Minister had all the data including names and locations of all farmers who benefited from the GES programme with regards to fertilizer. Moreso, other state governors including the Governors of Kebbi, Anambra, Kogi and Cross Rivers state all had stories of how successful the scheme was but still pointed out some shortcoming where the Minister ought to improve. So its surprising that if some states recorded such feats while Mr Aregbesola could not.Other Governors were talking about improving value chains, bringing in investors and giving them some incentives such as land and tax holidays so as to readily process cash and food products, Mr Aregbesola claimed that the whole Agric transformation was a sham. For instance the Anambra state governor along with Governor Dakingari of Kebbi mentioned their success stories on rice production, using Sure P funds to purchase the products for storage from the peasant farmers in order to ensure price stability and income for the farmers however out brother from Osun state was just purely negative and obviously had no grasp about the issue at hand. I was really dissapointed with his response when asked what his state is doing differently in order to encourage investors to come and invest all he could point out was that he was feeding 300,000 pupils with one egg per week to which the entire session erupted in laughter. That is not to say that venture is not a good feat in itself, but the real question remains the sustainability of the whole venture since the resounding theme of the Summit is to make Agriculture private sector driven. As for the agriculture transformational agenda, I believe that there has to be cooperation between the Federal and State Governments regardless of political orientation, in that the States identify areas which are favourable to the them, bring in the investors and ask the Federal Government to provide gurantees for funding and policies since the state government more or less own the land.

maasoap: You are a pathetic liar and completely ignorant of what you are talking about. When the programme to launch the capturing of farmers across the nation was launched this year, I participated in it in Osun State and the state government of osun really supported the fg and its representatives on that day with logistics and menu menu. Almost all the farmers I registered at ward 6, Osogbo local government, Osogbo have called me to know when the fertiliser will arrive. What month are we now? September.

awodman:

How about storage,transport and preservation...don't they play a very large role on the price of commodities..

When you say osun has empowered their system do they have a strong Market board that will buy off not just eggs but other farm produce?

Goddex:

Aregbesola is obviously playing politics and this is most unfortunate because to me the agric sector is the most important since it employs about 60% of the population. It's an area that touches the lives of close to 70,000,000 Nigerians and should be devoid of our dirty politics. Spending 1 billion to buy fertilizer that ends up enriching his commissioners, LGA chairmen, advisers and political associates has been an age long practice but found to be fraught with high level fraud.

rainbowman: I watched the State Governors session yesterday, though, I missed the keynote address from the Honourable Minister of Agriculture. From what I gathered, however, I discovered that the Minister had all the data including names and locations of all farmers who benefited from the GES programme with regards to fertilizer. Moreso, other state governors including the Governors of Kebbi, Anambra, Kogi and Cross Rivers state all had stories of how successful the scheme was but still pointed out some shortcoming where the Minister ought to improve. So its surprising that if some states recorded such feats while Mr Aregbesola could not.Other Governors were talking about improving value chains, bringing in investors and giving them some incentives such as land and tax holidays so as to readily process cash and food products, Mr Aregbesola claimed that the whole Agric transformation was a sham. For instance the Anambra state governor along with Governor Dakingari of Kebbi mentioned their success stories on rice production, using Sure P funds to purchase the products for storage from the peasant farmers in order to ensure price stability and income for the farmers however out brother from Osun state was just purely negative and obviously had no grasp about the issue at hand. I was really dissapointed with his response when asked what his state is doing differently in order to encourage investors to come and invest all he could point out was that he was feeding 300,000 pupils with one egg per week to which the entire session erupted in laughter. That is not to say that venture is not a good feat in itself, but the real question remains the sustainability of the whole venture since the resounding theme of the Summit is to make Agriculture private sector driven. As for the agriculture transformational agenda, I believe that there has to be cooperation between the Federal and State Governments regardless of political orientation, in that the States identify areas which are favourable to the them, bring in the investors and ask the Federal Government to provide gurantees for funding and policies since the state government more or less own the land.

Guk: I have a personal feeling that he Minister of Agric's Measurement/Metrics Information System is faulty but i may be wrong. He said we have achieved 33% production of rice meaning that every 1 in 3 bags of rice is produced in Nigeria.

Have you seen that reflected in the markets and stores you patronise for rice?

Has the 1 in 3 bags threatned or even forced down the price of the 2 in 3 still imported?

#justwonderingsha

awodman:

How about storage,transport and preservation...don't they play a very large role on the price of commodities..

When you say osun has empowered their system do they have a strong Market board that will buy off not just eggs but other farm produce?

jethro2: I was one of the enumerators for farmers registration in Ogun State. Most registered farmers has been calling me to ask when they will get the fertilizer, unfortunately I have no answer for that. I registered myself and i have not heard anything from the government. Some other day, I was at the Federal Ministry of Agric and Rural Development in one of the Local goverment in Oyo state. I saw the fertilizers but was told the programme closes that day. Most farmers in that axis of the village were still running round to raise funds to purchase the fertilizer, yer the programme has been declared close. The question is what then happens to the remaining fertilizers. Farmers that now have their money has to but at the normal market rate. I will say the programme failed woefully. Another of our government propagandas

maasoap: You are a pathetic liar and completely ignorant of what you are talking about. When the programme to launch the capturing of farmers across the nation was launched this year, I participated in it in Osun State and the state government of osun really supported the fg and its representatives on that day with logistics and menu menu. Almost all the farmers I registered at ward 6, Osogbo local government, Osogbo have called me to know when the fertiliser will arrive. What month are we now? September.

Goddex:

Quite a high percentage of the rice you find in our markets today which you call "foreign rice" is actually produced locally. Yes, this may surprise you, abi? Forget the pranks our market men/women play by bagging them in foreign brands - such as Uncle Bens, Mama Gold, Stalion, Cap etc. All na lie lie. . .

Sincere 9gerian: I even wonder why they invited that rascal governor to the programme. I hate it when people play politics with everything. I watched the house of reps public hearing on the GES scheme and the members of house of reps, across party lines, were full of praise for the e-wallet fertilizer distribution system. It is not enough for Aregbe to tell the world that he spent N1billion to purchase fertilizer. He should tell us how much from the N1billion was lost to inflated contracts. Of the quantity eventually bought, how many bags went to real farmers and at what cost, and how many was diverted to political farmers.

leighcon:

Meaning foreign brands are more expensive and more profitable right... then the dealers must have been buying from the local farmers who must be very rich now. These things don't work like magic, if the local market is what is being patronised you will see its multiplier effect everywhere, machines for rice processing and the spare parts would have its own market by now (I can't see that), technicians fixing those stuff would have training centers, transport sector would know it, there would be sales and marketing jobs out there, advertising agencies would be busier etc.

berem: Who is in charge of the fertilizer distribution? Federal Government might not be necessarily blamed for the fertilizer not reaching the farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture should create an agency which will have branches across all local governments. The agency should be in charge of distributing fertilizers directly to the farmers. If this is not done, farmers will continue to complain of fertilizers not reaching them.