Agriculture
MOHAMMED Sabo-Nanono, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, has assured Nigerian farmers that the Federal Government would provide the needed support to the “National Farmers Helpline Centre”.
This was contained in a statement by Dr Godfrey Onagwa, Communication Officer and Head of Public Relations, National Agricultural Extension and Liaisons Services (NAERLS), Zaria on Tuesday.
NAN reports that National Farmers Help Line Centre is a communication centre established by the NAERLS to address some challenges of Nigerian farmers via designated telephone lines.
Onagwa said the Minister made the disclosure during a two-day visit and tour of facilities at Agricultural Research Institutes in Zaria recently.
According to the Minister, this is part of government’s efforts to revamp the agricultural sector and improve the income of farmers across the country.
The Minister said the essence of visiting NAERLS was to have a first-hand observation of the challenges facing the Helpline Centre established by the institute.
He reassured the farmers that the ministry would liaise with all the partners in the telecommunication sector to make the centre fully functional.
Sabo-Nanono said one of the challenges of the Centre was the use of a short-code (such as the use of 3 or 4-digit code) for communicating with the Centre.
He said currently, rather than a short-code, the Centre uses a normal GSM line, 081-3989-0090, for calls and texts—using a SIM bank technology.
“However, this line can conveniently attend to 30 calls simultaneously; and there are more than 50 trained call agents at the Centre already.
“Consequently, to effectively cater for the more than 70 million farmers in the country, the capacity of the centre must be expanded and strengthened.
“The Centre is established by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) to help all stakeholders in the agricultural value chain in several ways,” he said.
He said the ways included provision of latest and proven best agricultural practices to help increase farm outputs; provision of real-time market information for agricultural produce buyers and sellers.
He said it was with a view to getting maximum financial benefits on agricultural commodities; provision of guidance to address field challenges such as disease outbreaks and food among others and thereby mitigate losses.
He added that it would also aid provision of information on both Government (Federal, State and Local Government) and private intervention programmes (loans, trainings, etc) on agriculture across the country.
The Centre has trained extension agents as desk officers/call agents to effectively provide the needed information to farmers in English, Pidgin English, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo Languages.
Earlier, the Minister had paid a courtesy visit to the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Prof. Ibrahim Garba.
Onagwa said during the visit, the Minister had a live conference (visuals and sound) with two farmers group in Kano and Kaduna states using the e-conferencing facilities at the centre.
– Oct 15, 2019 @ 14:40 GMT |
Tags: FG supports Farmers Help Line to create awareness
