A total of 1,385 farmers, comprising 930 males and 455 females in Sokoto would benefit from the N479.7 million grants from Fadama III project.
The state Commissioner of Agriculture, Alhaji Umaru Nagwari disclosed this at the Flagg off of agricultural processing machines and equipments hiring enterprise centres and tomato production net-houses yesterday.
He said that the beneficiaries were rice, sorghum and tomato farmers drawn from the local government areas of the state.
He explained that they would be provided with 203 number of machines and equipments in addition to two agricultural produce aggregation centers for rice and sorghum at Goronyo and Illela local government areas.
Other intervention, he said included 11 tomato production net-houses constructed for 19 production groups and Agricultural hiring enterprise centre with four unit of tractors, five mini tractors among others to be rented to farmers at subsidized rates to reduce to cost of production.
Nagwari added that 243 unemployed youths and women were trained on skill acquisition under the pilot scheme of Fadama Graduate, Unemployed Youth and Women Support programme (Fadama GUYS).
He said that the youths received development training on crop production, poultry, fisheries, livestock and Nigeria Agricultural enterprises curriculum among others and they would soon be provided with starter packs at the average cost of N1.4 million each.
In his remarks, the National Coordinator of Fadama III, Tayo Adewumi said the project had trained 5,916 youths and women from across 23 States of the federation on crops plantation and livestock business.
"This was born out of the need of the project to support government to deliver of the critical promise of employment generation through agriculture most especially now that the current farmers are aging out," he said
Adewumi commended Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal for the ample support to the project as well as consistent payment of counterpart fund and the state coordinator, Dr. Muhammad Mustapha for his commitment and dedication.
He said that the coordination office had assisted farmers to prepare 1,786 business plans from inception to date which were approved by the national office.
Also speaking Governor Tambuwal while commending the project in its efforts to address youth restiveness and ensure food security in the country, promised to increase the number of tractors for hiring to 30, with 10 in each of the senatorial zone.
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