NALDA harvests 30,000 liters of rabbit urine, 1000kg droppings for fertiliser production –Exec. Sec

The National Agricultural Land Development Authority(NALDA) says it has harvested over 30,000 litres of rabbit urine and 1,000kg of rabbit droppings for fertiliser production in the country.

The Executive Secretary of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne, said this on Sunday, in Abuja, while briefing newsmen on the achievements of the authority in the past one year.

He said that the rabbit urine and droppings were subjected to laboratory analysis, and rabbit farmers were already realising income from it.Similarly, Ikonne said the authority had identified and recovered NALDA farm estates from across the country, following directives by President Muhammad Buhari’s to it to recover all its abandoned farm estates.

He stated that recoveries were made from 21 states including, Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Delta, Ekiti, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Lagos, Niger, Osun, Oyo, Taraba and Yobe statesIkonne added that NALDA had started reactivating them in phases and was already in partnership with some State governments to reactivate abandoned state-owned farm estates.

According to him, the reconstruction and reactivation of the abandoned Acharaugo farm estate in Imo state, comprising 20 poultry pens, goat pens, crop farming areas and a feed mill, had begun and was expected to be completed by August, 2021.

In Ebonyi State, the authority was in the process of reactivating the hatchery farm in Nkaliki, while it had initiated a program called NALDA Integrated Farms, to be established in all the 109 Senatorial Districts across the country, he said.He added that it had reached out to the leadership of the Senate, with a view to mobilising the lawmakers to facilitate land donation by state governments to the program, domiciled under the National Young Farmers’ Scheme (NYFS), with each integrated farm expected to engage at least 1,500 farmers.

“The integrated farm estate will have poultry pens, goat pens, rabbit pens, fish ponds, crop farming areas, processing and packaging plants, in addition to storage, clinics, residential area, school, training centres, as well as an administrative facility”, Ikonne said.

Meanwhile, the NALDA boss says the authority had begun dry season rice farming in Adamawa, Niger, Yobe, Taraba and Bauchi, as pilot states.“The farmers were trained on dry season farming, which they were not used to, and we are expecting harvests in the coming weeks,” he said.Ikonne also said that NALDA provided all the inputs needed for the farming, ranging from tractors, boreholes, pumping machines, planters and trans planters, fertilizers and seeds.

He said that in order to achieve food security under the NYFS, launched by the President in Nov 2020, NALDA introduced the training and empowering of young graduates, through its Soil Doctors and Extension Service Providers initiative.Over 500 soil doctors were trained in Borno and Jigawa States, he said, adding that the initiative aimed at equipping young graduates, with agriculture or science backgrounds, with the knowledge of extension services.

The services, according to him, included soil testing and analysis and accompanied with soil-testing kits, to enable them earn income while ensuring that our farmers were empowered the best agricultural practices for greater output.

“In line with NALDA’s mandate of achieving food security, we also have embarked on establishing fish villages, to engage rural women in fish production and packaging in some pilot States,” he said. (NAN)