From Olukayode Idowu, Maiduguri
SUNRISE NEWS, Borno, Sept 9, 2020 Borno State Government is targeting the cultivation of 65,000 hectares of different crops to boost agriculture in the Northeast state.
This was revealed by the governor, Professor Babagana Zulum while hosting an agro-facilitating team from the Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday.
The governor held a meeting with the CBN officials at the Borno liaison office complex in Abuja, and in attendance is a deputy director with CBN, Mahmood Nyako, who led the team that included CBN’s head of anchor borrowers, Chika Nwaja, and Mohammed Garba Said, the bank’s head, fish farming intervention programme.
Borno’s commissioner for Agriculture, Engineer Bukar Talba, the chairman of Borno’s mega farms project, Hon. Musa Inuwa Kubo, were on the Borno team.
The Governor said Borno was interested in keying into CBN’s anchor borrowers and commercial agriculture programmes with the aim of cultivating 30,000 hectares of sesame seeds, 10,000 hectares of maize, 10,000 hectares of sorghum, 15,000 hectares for cultivation of rice, groundnut and cowpea with each to take 5,000 hectares.
He said the cultivation is to take place in farms located in the Borno central, south and north, in line with the administration’s aggressive efforts to restore agriculture in protection of livelihood for internally displaced persons and resettled communities.
The governor also indicated keen interest in Borno State taking advantage of CBN’s fish farming intervention.
The team from the CBN and the state government are expected to hold another meeting in Maiduguri next week to agree on areas the bank will support “huge investment to create value chain in fish farming”.
Zulum had identified communities in Borno where citizens engage in fish farming, pointing out that his administration was going to invest in ways the citizens would have increase in yield for wealth creation and enhancement of food sufficiency.