The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, says it has so far supported 141,000 households among Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) with agricultural inputs for the rainy season farming in the Northeast.

The Acting Country representative, Mr Nourou Macki-tall, made this announcement at the flagging off of presentation of agricultural inputs to 1,500 IDPs at Shagari low-cost area in Maiduguri on Friday.

Macki-Tall noted that the exercise was conducted in partnership with World Food Program, Social Welfare Network Initiative and the Borno state Ministry of Agriculture, stating that 67,000 farmers were drawn from Borno, 41,000 in Yobe and 32,000 beneficiaries were from Adamawa.

He explained that the FAO had so far made about $17.5 million which would be channeled into various agricultural programs to target 1.1 million farming populations in the Northeast of Nigeria.

“We are targeting farming communities who lost their means of livelihood in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa. Farming was the basic means of livelihood for most of them and they have not been able to farm for quite some time.

“In March 2017, FAO and Federal Ministry of Agriculture conducted the cadre harmonise vulnerability analysis that estimated around 5.2 million people will face high levels of food insecurity in the Northeast.

“With the recovery of hitherto vacated lands and restoration of relative peace in some liberated communities, the need for the people to get back their lives together cannot be over emphasised.

“Lack of agricultural inputs is the major constraints for many farmers particularly the IDPs.” Mr Macki-Tall lamented.

The 1,500 beneficiaries drawn from Maiduguri Metropolitan Council and Jere received varieties of seeds like Cowpea, cereal, Millet Seeds, Sorghum, maize seeds and fertilisers.

Other beneficiaries in Jere council mostly women, would receive Okro seeds, Amarantus, sorrel, Roselle seeds, and fertilisers.