Rice Farmers Registered For Dry Season Farming In Daura

The registration of 6,000 rice farmers in Daura that will benefit from the dry season anchor borrowers agricultural programme has been set in motion by the Local Government’s chapter of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN).

The chapter’s Chairman Malam Nura Baure disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday.

He said the chapter had since started the distribution of registration forms to interested farmers for their eventual capture into the programme.

He said each form must be endorsed by a magistrate, district head and a reliable guarantor who stood for an individual or organization of farmers before one would be qualified for the loan.

He said the farmers would be provided with fertilizers, insecticide and herbicides, seedlings, sprayers and water pumping machines

He said the number of hectares registered by an individual farmer determined the quantity of inputs a farmer would receive.

Baure called on the 1,600 rice farmers who benefitted from the programme’s agricultural inputs during the last dry season farming to hasten repayment of the loan, stressing that failure to comply would attract sanction.

He said the repayment period of the facility was one year and farmers were expected to repay with bags of paddy rice or cash where possible but in accordance with the current market value of a bag of paddy rice.

The Daura chapter of RIFAN has so far registered 10,500 farmers in the area since inception of the programme in the last three years.