FG flags off dry season irrigation

To ensure all season farming across the country, the Federal Government has formally flagged off the dry season irrigation programme. The move by the government is to boost food security in the nation, especially through the full utilisation of dams and irrigation facilities for all-year-round farming.

Serah Ochekkpe, minister of water resources, while performing the official flagging-off at the Sepeteri Irrigation Project of the Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority, declared that the main objective of the exercise was “to practically demonstrate the efforts and activities of the ministry and its agencies in promoting all-season farming in the country.

According to her, it is aimed at showcasing the contribution of the ministry towards the realisation of the Federal Government’s transformation agenda. The minister, who was represented at the occasion by Abba Dauda Isawa, a deputy director in the ministry, said the gesture was to ensure that irrigation farming was made more efficient, effective and available to many communities to facilitate government’s attainment of food security and employment generation for the nation.

Speaking earlier, Lateef Yusuf, acting managing director of Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority, noted that “the Sepeteri Irrigation Project is one of the 24 irrigation projects established and managed by the authority.” The various projects, he stated, are located across the four states covered by the operations of the authority – Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and Osun states. According to the managing director, the irrigation projects were designed to promote all-year-round farming and food security in Nigeria.

Commenting specifically on the Sepeteri Irrigation Project, the managing director explained that it was designed to develop 2,000 hectares irrigated farmland using water from the two existing dams, already constructed by the authority.

The managing director called on all relevant stakeholders to further explore areas of collaboration with the authority which, according to him, currently have enough raw water from its available dams.

He said: “A total of 212 hectares is currently under irrigation, 180 of which is under sprinkler system and 32 hectares under the Centre Pivot Irrigation System. Currently, arrangements are being made to increase the area under irrigation, just as we have ensured that the remaining hectares in the project is being used for rain-fed cropping.”

 Remi Feyisipo