Auchi (Edo) – Alhaji Aliru Momoh, the Otaru of Auchi has urged communities in the area to go into agriculture to enhance Federal Government’s efforts to diversify the country’s economy.
The monarch made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Auchi, Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo.

Momoh said though, about 200 women in the area were into agriculture, and stressed the need for more people in the community to go into farming.
Otaru said the zeal by the women,from an agrarian community, was to boost food production and ensure food security within the locality.

He said the council had advised all the 25 village heads in the area to encourage their wards to go back to agriculture in order to boost food security.

“We are asking everybody to start planting groundnut, Auchi has a product which is groundnut, and we are now saying everybody should go and grow groundnut.
“Even my wife has her own farm, by virtue of that policy, we encourage the women to farm and trade,’’ he said.
Otaru noted that the traditional council had created the enabling environment for investment in agriculture in the communities.
According to him, the traditional council has donated 5,000 hectares of land as part of the community’s effort to support the Federal Government’s agricultural revolution.

He said the hectares of land were meant for crops such as groundnut, maize, cassava and other economic crops.
“We have allocated some hectares of land to the Federal Government for the planting of cashew, cassava, maize and groundnut, and we are expecting them to come and inspect the land.’’
The monarch, however, said that the community had disbursed N5 million to some of the women farmers in the community to engage in petty trade due to fear of herdsmen attack on them at the farms.
“Because of the herdsmen issue, we gave out some money to farmers to engage in petty trade in order to ease them from the threat of herdsmen who threaten them in the farm,’’ he said

He assured people of the community that the traditional council was working with security agencies including the vigilante group as well as hunters to arrest the situation and make the farms safe once again.