The Kaduna South Senatorial District’s Senator Sunday Marshall Katung sponsored a motion that the Senate accepted on Tuesday, asking for action in the case of farmers who had lost N10 billion worth of ginger to infectious diseases.
The senator demanded in the motion that the lethal disease outbreak that is threatening Southern Kaduna’s ginger crop and severely harming farmers be addressed immediately.
According to Katung, ginger has been farmed in the southern region of Kaduna State since roughly 1927. Over the years, its value as a valued crop has constantly increased, although there has never been a significant amount of disease-related loss.
The motion further noted;
“that Kaduna State ranks the highest in ginger production in Nigeria, contributing to Nigeria’s place as one of the largest producers of ginger in the world, with a production average of more than 300,000 tonnes during the five-year period 2014-2018, and a global market share of about 11 per cent, trailing only India;
“Cognizant that as a subset of the agricultural sector, ginger production has a significant impact on revenue generation and farmers income, thereby reducing the rate of poverty amongst the local farmers of southern Kaduna and the country at large;
“Also cognizant that apart from its revenue generating potential, the consumption of ginger has many health benefits ranging from the prevention of stomach ulcers, the reduction of nausea and vomiting amongst pregnant women, to chemotherapy treatment for cancer patients;
“Worried that the 2023 ginger season in Southern Kaduna State has suffered a significant setback due to an outbreak of fungi pathogens infection destroying over 2,500 hectares of farmlands estimated at 10 Billion Naira across seven Local Government Areas of southern Kaduna State, thereby significantly threatening Nigeria’s position on the world chart of ginger production;
“Also worried that this devastating and unprecedented ginger pandemic affects Nigeria’s non-oil export performance and is already affecting the lives of many individuals within the affected communities of southern Kaduna because ginger is their source of livelihood.”
Following statements emphasizing the value of ginger production, the Senate directed its Committee on Agricultural Production and Rural Development to communicate with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, which oversees the National Agricultural Quarantine Services, and its hierarchical structure.
The Committee was requested to undertake an on-the-spot evaluation tour of all Southern Kaduna state areas afflicted by the ginger pandemic.
Godswill Akpabio, the president of the Senate, urged the Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention to set up monitoring systems right once in order to gather, examine, and understand data on the illness in order to stop phytonoses from spreading further.