Hosea Finangwal, the commissioner for agriculture in Plateau, says farmers in the state lost potatoes worth N18 billion to potato blight disease.
Finangwal disclosed this when delegates from the National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike, visited him on Tuesday in Jos, the state capital.
The commissioner said out of the 150,000 hectares of land cultivated; 52,000 hectares were infected with blight, leading to 2,000 farmers losing N18bn worth of potatoes.
Finangwal said his ministry was proactive in escalating the case to Governor Simon Lalong who immediately reported to the federal ministry of agriculture. He said the federal ministry sent delegates from the research institute to the state to proffer solutions to the disease.
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Joseph Onyeka, head of the team and director, Biotech Department, said they were in Jos to discuss with stakeholders how to develop viable resistant seedlings.
Onyeka said the team would also look into the tissue culture laboratory to make it functional.
“We want to find preventive measures, upgrade the tissue culture so that quality materials and disease-free materials can be obtained,” he said.
Onyeka said the team would also interface with the state government to work on storage facilities, tolerant varieties and processing facilities.
The director said that the team had come to help resolve recurring outbreak of the disease. He said that farmers need to learn how to use fungicides as fungicides are protective not curative.
“Farmers must be sensitised and properly taught how to use fungicides and also take instructions from extension workers,’’ Onyeka said.
He said that the group of professionals available on ground would work with stakeholders in the state to resolve the problem.
