By Ihechinyere Chigemeri-Uwom

The Abia Government has embarked on a comprehensive statewide enumeration and verification to identify genuine farmers in the state.

The Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Cliff Agbaeze, made this known at a media briefing on the outcome of the State Executive Council Meeting, in Umuahia.

Agbaeze said that the initiative evolved to eliminate the diversion of agricultural interventions.

He said that the state would leverage technology to ensure that only real farmers benefited from any government support.

According to him, data collected from the enumeration process would be uploaded to a cloud-based system, enabling real-time access to farmer information.

“With one touch of a button on my phone, I will be able to know the location of specific farmers.

“In this administration, you are not recognised as a farmer until you have an actual farm.

“We are geo mapping every farm by capturing coordinates and tagging them to individual farmers before any form of intervention is given.”

Agbaeze described the exercise as part of the government’s commitment to ending politically motivated interventions, ensuring that support reached only those actively engaged in farming activities.

He also noted that all participants of the agricultural empowerment programme, facilitated by the government and CSS Farms, were selected from all local government areas.

Agbaeze said that the government had provided direct funding to the beneficiaries.

“We continue to monitor their progress closely, and feedback shows that about 90 per cent or even more of the trained farmers are doing very well,” he added.

The commissioner reaffirmed the government’s resolve to sustain the monitoring and verification process as part of efforts to drive agricultural growth and food security across the state. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Maureen Atuonwu