Beti (Bauchi) – The Federal Government has approved N30 billion for the implementation of Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES) to Small Scale farmers in the country, an official said.

Abba Auchan, the Deputy Director, Quality Control, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, disclosed this on Friday in Beti Village, Misau Local Government Area of Bauchi State.

Auchan, who represented the Minister of Agriculture, Akin Adesina, at the inauguration of the trial version of the scheme, said the fund would run for four years.

“A total of N30 billion has been approved by the Federal Government for the programme and it will run for the next four years.

“In each year, five million farmers will be targeted; next year, another five million farmers; and we hope that may be by the time we have seen the success, the government may go the extra mile to reach out to more farmers.

“The total subsidy quantum of between 50 per cent – 25 per cent will be borne by the states that have opted to participate in the programme, and 25 per cent contribution will be from the Federal Government.”

He explained that the programme was targeted at five million farmers all over the country and that each farmer was expected to receive one bag of Urea and another bag of NPK fertiliser.

“This means a total of 10 million bags of fertilisers will be distributed to the farmers during the wet season.

“So, what we are doing now, we are just doing the trial with the wet season farmers and by the time the programme is fully appreciated and fully understood, then we may extend to the dry season farmers.”

Auchan said that plans were on to make irrigation farmers and those participating in the Fadama III programme to benefit from the scheme.

He said that small scale farmers are the main target at the moment and they would benefit a lot from the programme, which included availability, accessibility and affordability of agricultural inputs.

“The essence of the programme is three-dimensional; one, is to improve the availability of fertiliser to the farmers; secondly, to improve the accessibility of farmers to fertiliser and then thirdly, to address the issue of affordability.

“Because we all know that farmers are resource poor, so they need some support. So, the government is coming up with the programme to support the farmers.

“By so doing, farmers can increase their productivity and at the same time increase their own income, a system of channelling subsidy direct to the farmers through using mobile phone.

“But, we know there may be problem here and there after the registration and the identification of the farmer by the time the full programme takes off all over the country.

“It is going to go hand-in-hand with the Voucher System, that is, the use of paper system, so that if there is a problem, we would then revert to the voucher system.”

The deputy director called on farmers in the country to key in to the scheme to enable them benefit from the subsidy and ease their access to fertiliser. (NAN)