THE Kwara State government says it has engaged key research institutions to find a way of protecting farmers in the state against possible outbreak of new disease affecting major crops, especially maize and tomatoes.

Speaking at a ministerial briefing organised by the ministry of Information and Communication in Ilorin on Monday, Special Adviser to Kwara State governor on Agriculture and Rural Water, Mr Anu Ibiwoye, said terms of engagement include training of farmers to identify the possible diseases and other steps in line with best practices.

Ibiwoye, who said food security was the focus of the administration's policies in the sector, explained that the state had been able to have a comprehensive list of actual farmers across the 16 local government areas, which would enhance the effective implementation of various policies to benefit the populace.

"Food security is the cardinal objective of our agric policy. We have engaged for instance the Nigerian Stored Product Research Institute, (NSPRI), which is a Federal Government agency and has capacity to manage post-harvest situation of crops. We have identified the potentials of the problems with tomatoes and maize and we are engaging them and they will train our farmers.

"They were with us two weeks ago. We will take every necessary measure as a state to prevent those diseases from crossing into our borders but I think the first and critical factor is to train our farmers to identify and handle such issues," he said.

He said the state was also working with the two other federal research institutes in the state, the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI) and the National Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation (NCAM) with a view to leveraging on the partnership to enhance the visibility and productivity of farmers across the state.

In another development, he said the state had also successfully allocated 100 hectares of land to 100 farmers for the cultivation of cassava under a partnership arrangement with a nongovernmental organisation based in Kenya, which would fund the programme and give back the returns to the farmers as a means of empowering them.

"We have identified the farmers, we have identified the land and we have sent the names to the NGO and once they verify and are okay with it then we will start the project," he said.

He also said the Federal Government was giving the state some two million cashew seedlings for the 2016 farming season as a follow up to the successful hosting of a cashew roundtable in the state, saying it would go a long way in helping farmers in the sub sector.