ON the 19th of July this year, President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned an integrated farm estate in Katsina which was built by the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA).
This is the first farm estate that has been reactivated by NALDA since it was resuscitated by the the President last year.
The integrated farm estate is established on a 100-hectare land donated by the Katsina State government.
This is one of the efforts of the government towards achieving self sufficiency in food production, through revitalising existing agricultural projects and programs.
NALDA has farm estates across the country which were abandoned for years since the program was scrapped in 2002. Some of these farm estates have been overgrown by bushes, some were illegally occupied and the structures misused.
About NALDA
NALDA was established by the former Military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, through Decree No. 92 of 1992 to execute a program that would address the problem of low level of utilisation of abundant farmland and rural labour resources as well as the high cost of land development.
Then, 10 years into its existence, it was scrapped by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.
However, President Muhammadu Buhari resuscitated NALDA in June 2020, amended the Act establishing it through the National Assembly to deliver on its mandate of developing the rural communities through agriculture.
President Buhari appointed Prince Paul Ikonne as the Executive Secretary of the Authority with the mandate to recover all its lands and farm estates across the country.
NALDA kick-started its activities with animal husbandry programme, which included rabbittry and goat rearing in some pilot states.
The Authority identified and recovered NALDA farm estates in Gombe, Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Niger, Kebbi, Oyo, Imo, Katsina, Lagos, Ekiti, Delta, Bauchi, Yobe, Kaduna, Benue, Kogi, Osun, Anambra, Akwa Ibom and Abia States.
NALDA also engaged in dry season farming of rice in some pilot States of Adamawa, Niger, Yobe, Taraba and Bauchi.
Farmers were trained on dry season farming of which they were not used to. NALDA provided all the farmers required for farming ranging from tractors, boreholes, pumping machines, planters and transplanters, fertilizer and seeds.
In order to achieve food security under the National Young Farmers’ Scheme (NYFS), which the President launched in November 2020, NALDA introduced the training and empowering of young graduates through the initiative of Soil Doctors and Extension Service Providers.
NALDA is targeting to train and empower 30,000 soil Doctors which had commenced and over 500 Soil Doctors been trained in Borno and Jigawa States.
The essence is to equip young graduateswith agriculture or science backgrounds with the knowledge of extension services, which include soil testing and analysis and they are being given soil-testing kits in order for them to earn a living while ensuring that farmers are being equipped with best agricultural practices for greater output.
NALDA also embarked on establishing fish villages to engage rural women in fish production and packaging in some pilot States:
Borno and Abia states.
In Borno, NALDA has started the construction of fish villages in 10 locations out of the 50 locations provided by the Borno State Government to engage 2,200 women.
While in Abia the fish village in one location is over 40 per cent completed.
During his courtesy visit to the Governor of Katsina State, Ikonne said that in the pilot phase of the programme, the Authority had selected 14 states where it would train 100 youths in three Local Government Areas each on various forms of agricultural production.
He said the pilot states were selected from the six geo-political zones of the country, as more states would be selected in subsequent phases of the programme to maximise its impact on the economy.
About the Integrated farm estate in Katsina The newly established Integrated Farm Estate in Suduje, Katsina State by NALDA is expected to generate over N1.7 billion in the first year.
The farm estate is comprised of 40 poultry pens which has the capacity to house 400,000 birds. Farmers who are into poultry will be allocated spaces in the pens to either go into egg production, meat production or both.
There is also fish ponds where fish farmers can stock over 200,000 fishes of different species. The ponds would be distributed among farmers who want to venture into fish farming. It is expected that this effort will go along way in reducing the over 2 million metric tons of fish imported annually.
Also there is cow and goat pens which can keep about 500 animals. Farmers will also take advantage of the pens to keep animals for either meat or milk production.
Rabbit breeding will also take place in the farm estate with pens that can accommodate about 3000 rabbits. The rabbit farmers are expected to harvest the urine and dungs of the rabbits which would serve as fertilizer for crops.
There is the bee apiary with the capacity of 540 litres of honey per harvest. Bee farmers will be allocated hives for bee keeping and honey production.
Crop farmers will also have lands for cultivation, after harvest, there is provision for packaging and processing in the farm estate.
With the farm’s poultry, fishery, rabbitry and bee keeping unit, about 95 percent of the nutritional requirement of the system is self-sustained through resource recycling.
The Integrated Farm Estate has a school, clinic and a residential area, with 120 units of one bedroom apartments for the farmers and their families to live and work in the farm.
The farm estate is an effort towards increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, reduce unemployment and achieving food security.
The integrated farm has a processing and packaging zone for fish, chicken and pepper, also farmers from outside the estate will also have their products, especially pepper processed and packaged so they can get more value.
Farmers in the estate are being trained on best agricultural practices in crop farming, livestock, poultry, rabbits and fish farming.
The participating farmers are from 13 communities, namely Suduje, Madobi, Kaya, Sharawa, Sukwanawa, Dadin Kowa, Daberan, Benga, Kurneji, Zari, Mazuji, Tambu and Dannakola.
The farm has the capacity to engage 1,500 women and youths directly.
NALDA has designed a management system where Jaiz Bank will manage the entire facility with a team of the Authority’s professionals for continuity and sustainability.
The integrated farm estate is deliberately designed to accommodate, empower and position a new set of 1,500 agro entrepreneurs every year.
The Integrated Farming System (IFS) holds a special position as nothing is wasted, the by-product of one system becomes the input for another.
The NALDA Integrated Farm Estate is designed with a complete production chain for food and livestock, an irrigation system so that farmers will have three production cycles in a year.
The farm is divided into 80 hectares for crop production and 20 hectares for animal production, processing and packaging, with growing of feeds, which include recycling animal wastes as fertilizer for plants, and growing plants to feed the animals.
The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, said the Bank would work with NALDA to explore the potential of providing affordable and accessible finance to the beneficiaries under the agricultural scheme to scale up productivity.
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