Farmers Lose 1.7mt Grains To Drought In Katsina
Farmers in Katsina State have lost over 1.7 million metric tons of grains comprising sorghum, millet, cow beans, rice, soybean and maize to drought in 2021.
Sorghum, millet, cow beans, rice, soybean and maize were the worst affected in the southern part of the state, while maize and rice were mostly among the crops that were affected in the central and northern zones of the state.
The Special Adviser to Governor Aminu Bello Masari on Agriculture, Abba Abdullahi, noted that harvest from 500,000 hectares of farmlands was lost to the drought within the period.
“Farmers lost 158,000 metric tonnes of sorghum, 761,000 metric tonnes of millet, cow beans, 200,000 metric tonnes; rice 92,000 metric tonnes; soybean, 105,000 metric tonnes; and maize, 137,000 metric tonnes, among others.”
Abdullahi said that 20 per cent of the farmers in Daura, Kaita, Mashi and Dutsi Local Governments lost 70 per cent of what they planted, mostly millet and sorghum, while others lost about 40 to 90 per cent of their crops due to the shortage of rainfall.
According to him, based on the data that was collated from the field by the state Ministry of Agriculture, 60 per cent of the farmers across the 34 local governments experienced one crop loss or the other during last year’s farming season.
He added: “In all, there was a total loss of one million, seven hundred and fifty-four thousand grains in the 2021 wet season cropping due to drought across the 34 local government areas of the state.”
The special adviser said some strategic measures have been adopted by the state government in order to mitigate the impacts of climate change and other predicaments afflicting farmers in the state.
He stressed that the state government had agreed to follow the international best practice of allocating and timely release of 10 per cent of the state’s annual budget for agricultural activities to boost food production in the state.
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