Brave Dickson
Dozens of peasant farmers in Rivers State have received free medical check-ups and treatments organized by Association of Commercial Farmers and Agro Allied Producers of Nigeria in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Some of the peasant farmers with various degrees of ailments told our correspondent that the manual farming they have been subjected to for many years was largely responsible for their sicknesses.
“The kind of hard farming we do in our various communities coupled with poverty and aging have deteriorated our health.
“Even when we noticed the symptoms of sickness, we don’t even have money to feed well let alone money to treat ourselves.
“Our fellow farmers are dying everyday due to sickness and poor living conditions.
“We were happy to hear that an agric association wants to treat us for free. That is why we came out en mass to benefit from this unusual opportunities. We are grateful to the organizers,” they said.
In his response, President, National Association of Commercial Farmers and Agro Allied Producers of Nigeria, Engr. Amadi Fidelis commended the farmers for making good use of the opportunity by coming out for treatment.
Engr Amadi said statistics have revealed that the deteriorating health status of peasant farmers in the state was alarming.
He said, “we can’t afford to be losing our farmers on daily basis due to ill health. These medical programmes we have begun with Obio/Akpor LGA will cut across the 23 LGAs of the state. We want to see our farmers in good health as we expect our farm produce to be wholesome too.”
Identifying areas the free medical treatment covered, Engr Amadi said so far treatment and check-ups were dispensed on malaria, typhoid, hepatitis B, HIV among others.
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