Suspected Herdsmen Attack Benue Community, Sack District Head
South East

Food scarcity looms as farmers in Anambra battle herdsmen, BVN

Maize farmers in Anambra state have expressed worry over incessant herdsmen attacks and invasion into their farm lands.

The farmers, under the aegis of Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN), also decried lack of access to various government agricultural programmes following ownership of Bank Verification Number (BVN).

State Chairman of the association, Chief Simon Nwafor, who disclosed this at Onitsha on Tuesday, begged the federal government to find a lasting solution to the menace so as to avert food scarcity.

He disclosed that the association had over 2,000 members, but regretted that majority of them in the rural areas did not have BVN.

“The issue of herdsmen’s attacks is really a menace. Government can handle the issue by keeping them and their cattle in a mapped out place so that our farms will remain. The farmers also want adequate security in the farms.

“Most of our core rural farmers don’t have account let alone BVN, and this has always disenfranchised them from participating in the programme.

“The federal government through the CBN should soft pedal on the issue of BVN, so that majority of our farmers in the rural areas will be incorporated into it,” he appealled.

Applauding the Federal Government for disbursing N20 million worth faming inputs to the state farmers for the 2019 farming season, Nwafor assured a bountiful harvests as some members had moved to Omasi-Uno farm cluster in Ayamelum Local Government Area for mechanised maize farming.

According to him, some of the inputs were 122 bags of 20kg maize; 504 bags of 50kg NPK fertilizer; 152 bags of 50kg Urea and agro-chemicals, others.
Other challenges facing the association, he said, included poor access roads and herdsmen incursion into farm lands.

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