News in brief:
– Niger state received another 200 tractors, aiming to cultivate more land and increase grain production.
– This is part of a larger $650 million deal to mechanise their agriculture as the governor moves to increase food security.
Niger state has received 200 additional tractors, taking its mechanisation capacity to new heights.
Recall that the state had previously received 500 large-capacity tractors, 500 harvesters and 1,000 different equipment for irrigation and other farming activities in March 2024.
With the newly arrived tractors, the state has set its sight on cultivating more than the 250,000 hectares it had planned before and producing one million tonnes of grains, according to one news report.
To aid this expected increased production, Niger Foods has been used to buy hybrid seeds of rice, maize, millet, sorghum, and beans from Germany’s Bayer AG.
The tractors are part of the $650 million financing deal that the state secured with American equipment manufacture, John Deere, in January 2024.
Details of the deal, according to the state government’s website, is for the supply of 600 high-capacity tractors (100-430hp), 200 high-capacity combine harvesters, 200 bulldozers, 200 excavators, and other implements including the latest technology in planters, sprayers and fertiliser spreaders.
The statement, signed by Bologi Ibrahim, Chief Press Secretary to the governor, mentioned that the administration will facilitate the preparation of 1 million hectares across the state.
In related news, Niger’s Umaru Bago had also overseen the sale of 50,000 metric tonnes (MT) of food at half the price in 25 local government areas of the state. He mentioned that this food is proceed from the dry season farming initiative the state carried out.
The 50,000MT of foods we are giving out at 50% discount to be sold in designated areas across the 25LGAs are from our dry season farming and they are initially meant for export; but we cannot export what we do not have, we have opened the stores of Niger State to feed Nigerlites. pic.twitter.com/Lq9uS6He5u
— His Excellency Mohammed Umaru Bago (@HonBago) July 19, 2024
The online reactions to Bago’s announcement and photo ops have been overwhelmingly positive with X (formerly Twitter) users calling on their state governors to follow his example.
However, the farming efforts by the governor have not begun impacting food inflation in the state. Between April and June 2024, Niger state has not featured among the top three states with slowest food inflation rates, according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), either on a year-on-year basis or month-on-month.
Also, in March 2024, it was the state that experienced the highest spike in local rice price while in May, it saw the highest price in packaged wheat flour.
It may likely be that harvest from the farming initiatives have not hit the markets, although, the maturity period for its major crops (rice, maize, millet, sorghum, and beans) are 150 days at most.
