By Bassey Inyang - Calabar
The Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, has donated farming inputs valued at some millions of naira to farmers in the six local government areas that make up the Central Senatorial district of Cross River State.
Ndoma-Egba made the donation during an outreach staged at his instance for farmers in his constituency which comprises Abi, Boki, Obubra, Yakurr, Etung and Ikom local government areas.
The items donated include 12,000 yam seedlings, 5,000 sachets of rodomil pesticides, 5,000 litres of gamalin, 500 litres of pesticides, 600 knapsack sprayers and 200 bags of high yield rice seedlings.
During the outreach, the farmers were taught the various techniques of applying peptides, herbicides and fertilizers, so they can maximize their output and how to access loans from financial institutions to enable them farm with ease. On the event, which held at Ikom Council Hall, the headquarters of the Central Senatorial district, Ndoma -Egba said the distribution and outreach is just the first phase of such projects that would be held in future.
“The Central Senatorial District is a multi-purpose farming zone with quite a number of agricultural products produced there and to make the farmers produce more we have to strengthen their effort.
“The Ikom outreach was a pilot scheme but I am satisfied with the response of the famers and then frequency will be increased and the agricultural inputs diversified to meet the needs of the various cadre of farmers in the senatorial district”, Ndoma-Egba said.
In his remarks, Chairman of Ikom Local Government Area, Ayiba Ayiba Ojong, commended the Ndoma-Egba for affiliating the farmers outreach programme, distributing the farm inputs and the free medical programme for the people undertaken by the Senate leader.
Ojong called on the farmers to use the items given to them well so that they would maximise their productivity and boost the state of their economies. “The practice where people are given handouts do much for them but giving them farm inputs and seedlings positions them to farm and earn a better living for themselves and the family”, he said.