We plan to cultivate 7.5m metric tonnes of rice this year’s dry season ― RIFAN

The Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) has declared its plan to cultivate 7.5 million metric tons of paddy rice in this year’s dry season irrigation farming.

It said already the farming has commenced in some selected states in the country.

Its National President, Alhaji Aminu Mohammed Goronyo stated this while speaking with newsmen in Kaduna on Wednesday.

He said the participating states include Niger, Katsina, Sokoto Zamfara and Kano have since commenced the cultivation in their respective states.

Goronyo stated that “every year we conducted single dry season farming but this year, we had a plan to have two phases of dry season farming because of the availability of water everywhere as a result of the heavy flooding we experienced this year.”

He said with the intervention of the CBN they expect each hectare to give them 5 metric tons of rice,” he explained.

According to him, the activities of phase one dry season farming has since commenced from this month of November and, is expected to the run-up to the end of February 2021, and will be ready for harvesting.

Equally, the second phase of the programme according to him will start from the month of February ending up to the end of May 2021 and is expected to be ready for harvesting.

Alhaji Aminu Goronyo stated that, by putting together what their farmers would produce both in phase one and phase two of the dry season farming programme, they expected to cultivate 7.5 million metrics tons of rice.

He believes that if they succeeded in producing these figures, it will cover all the loses they incur as a result of flooding they experienced this year.

He then commended President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for directing the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN, to give them all that they required towards the success of this year’s dry season rice farming in the country.

He said the CBN governor called them for a meeting and without wasting much of their time, he recommended and gave them all the necessary support through the CBN intervention funding programme.

Goronyo further disclosed that they have since distributed the high-breed seeds and other farm inputs to rice farmers who were expected to cultivate 9.5 million hectares of farmland.

“We are enthusiastic about dry season irrigation farming because, we are sure of high yields,” he stated.

He thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for his concern towards the development of the agricultural sector through the introduction of the CBN’s various intervention programmes, aimed at aiding the activities of rice production in the country.

“This has helped our farmers in so many ways and, we are able to cultivate and produce more than enough rice for our local consumption and even export it to our neighbouring countries,” he declared.

He said they have successfully engaged 750,000 farmers into rice dry season farming in the phase one programme and, they were expected to cultivate 1.5 million hectares of farmland.

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