Gombe govt to cultivate 10,000 hectares of cotton in 2018

Gombe State Government says it is going to cultivate 10,000 hectares of cotton in 2018 farming season across the 11 Local Government Areas of the state.

Malam Musa Umar, Chairman Gombe State Commodity Depot and Exchange Centre, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe on Wednesday.

He said that the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) would finance the project.

“NIRSAL has agreed to finance the project, we have even registered the farmers and the state government will be the off-takers of the produce.

`We want to source market for our farmers, give them the good price of international standard.” he said.

Umar said they were going to use 5,000 farmers and each farmer would cultivate two hectares of land.

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According to him, previously Gombe has the best quality cotton in the world, but the story has completely changed.

“We already know Gombe used to be a cotton belt and in those days we were producing 119,000 metric tonnes of cotton.

“The Gombe State commodity Depot and Exchange Centre will bring back the lost glory of the state.

“The centre will also reposition and transform the economic sector of the state’’, he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Commodity Depot Exchange Centre concept emanated from a paper presented by the 11 sector committee inaugurated by Gov. Ibrahim Dankwambo during his first tenure in 2011.