The dry season farming for 2023 and 2024 has been flagged off in Benue State.
Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Joseph Utsev, who was present at the flagoff ceremony in makurdi the state capital, says government targets cultivating 500,000 hectares of irrigable land in 2024.
The Minister who is of Tiv decent is back to his home state, in a major visit after his ministerial appointment months ago.
Expectations from the Minister here as concerns basic needs are definitely high, as his native ruler the Tor Tiv speaks the mind of his people saying “Let water flow”.
The Minister subsequently inaugurated a dam project which he hopes will tackle various social and economic challenges associated with unemployment, irrigation farming, power generation and water supply.
Laboratories, including a Soil and Geographic Information System one, at the Lessel Dam are also commissioned, alongside the inspection of other facilities at the lower Benue axis.
The minister also observed that the 1,500 hectare farm, in the Mbaku community belonging to the Lower Benue River Basin Development Authority, is inadequate for irrigation farming in 2024.
Farmers and other beneficiaries were as well given water pumps and inputs. .
