Maize Farmers Association of Nigeria (MAAN), has projected an increase with possibility of attaining the target of producing 25 million metric tonnes of maize at the end of the 2019 dry and rainy planting seasons for local consumption.
The President, MAAN, Bello Abubakar, who gave the estimation on Wednesday in Abuja during a between the association and Business Innovation Facility (BIF), said the target is also to help Nigeria fight maize importation.
Abubakar noted that the meeting with BIF was aimed at assisting MAAN on how to collect data, assess the association and also help in building capacity of all their programmes to enhance quality production.
He added that the association is working closely with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Central Bank of Nigeria so as to empower farmers in areas so that they can produce more than what we have.
“All year round, this year alone, our farmers cultivated more than 50 thousand hectares, which we are expecting 180 thousand metric tonnes, that is under Anchor Borrowers’ Programme and other farmers assessment for the maize production is estimated to be about 20 million tonnes. This is a great achievement in terms of maize production in Nigeria.”
Speaking on fight against army worm, Abubakar said, “there is a plan on ground to fight it, because there is taskforce committee on ground which was inaugurated by the minister of Agriculture last year, and I am one of the members of the committee.
“The committee have started working on it already, and we have already taken serious action on army worm this year. And all the farmers know the problem of army worm has drastically come down. By next year, we have so many organisations we are collaborating with so that we will come to the end of it in Nigeria.
“We are working with technocrats and other maize researchers in various agricultural research institute. There are so many technical aspects which they are going to educate and sensitise our farmers in a modern way of Agriculture, especially in terms of mechanisation.
“Presently, MAAN has already provided including planter, threshers, and harvesters. Our farmers will be given all these implements and they will be educated and how they are going to use it.”
While addressing newsmen, Consultant to BIF, Awala Haruna, noted that the meeting was an assessment, to reposition the MAAN, collect data to understand where MAAN, so that they will be able to see the way they will move forward in terms of improving their efficiency.
“Associations like MAAN fail to make significant impact, because their arrangements in terms of the exco, office structure are not efficient, we need to look at that, and then recommend at the professional management consumption for the kind of structure they have, so as to leverage on the quality of management system they should have.”
