By Israel Bulus, Kaduna
The Kaduna-South Senator, Barr. Sunday Marshall Katung, has expressed fears that Nigeria may lose her position in the global market as the second largest producer of ginger if farmers are not compensated due to the fungal disease that inflicted the farmlands.
It would be recalled that the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Aliyu Abdullahi had confirmed the outbreak of ginger blight epidemic in Kaduna, Nasarawa, Plateau, and the Federal Capital Territory.
He disclosed that preliminary estimates shows that affected farmers in southern Kaduna alone lost over N12bn.
The Senator who spoke on Sunday at a one-day workshop, organized by the Senate Committee on Capital Market in collaboration with Lagos Commodities and Future Exchange, in Abuja, lamented that ginger farmers may not return to farming as the Rainy season approaches if they are not compensated for the loss they incurred during the outbreak of the deadly disease.
Katung express worried that if the ginger farmers are not encouraged to by way of compensation, Nigeria may lose her position in the global stage as second largest producers of the commodity.
” The losses the ginger farmers incurred as a result of the outbreak of the fungi pathogens during the last farming season were monumental.
“You have to compensate them as a way of encouraging them (farmers) to go back to farming. If that is not done, farmers would no longer be interested in farming, and we will lose our position in the world as a country,” Sen. Katung told the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security.
End.
