Farmers blame Wike over hike in food price

Brave Dickson

Farmers in Rivers State have blamed Governor Nyesom Wike for being responsible for the consistent hike in food price across the state.

Speaking with our correspondent, the National President of Commercial Farmers and Agro-Allied Producers of Nigeria, Amadi Fidelis maintained that Wike lacked interest in the state’s agriculture sector.

He said, “the lack of interest in agriculture by the Wike-led state government has contributed to the steady hike in food price in the state.

“The state is blessed with farmlands and expert farmers but the government has not encouraged agriculture in the state.

“The insecurity in the rural parts of the state where 90 percent of farmlands are situated has instilled fear in farmers, making them afraid of going to the farm.

“The prolonged dry season in the state can not make farmers to embark on all year farming without irrigation and tractors and that is where government should have come in.

“The type of farming that will increase food production and control price inflation is commercially mechanised farming which is too expensive for the large number of peasant farmers to afford.”

Fidelis also hinted that even tractors that were provided by the Niger Delta Development Commission were taken to the North at the farming deterrent of the Niger Deltans.