Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom has lamented that the state is now faced with unprecedented food shortage due to the incessant attacks by herdsmen on different communities in the state.
He said residents in various communities had deserted their ancestral homes and aken refuge in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps.
He raised the alarm while flagging off the distribution of improved seedlings of various crops including rice, watermelon, cassava corn among others to farmers.
The seedlings were procured by the Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs in Makurdi.
“As a government we are doing everything possible to ensure that our communities are safe with the inauguration of the Community Volunteer Guards, CVG. And we believe that with the CVG working closely with the people the herdsmen challenge will be a thing of the past soon,” he said.
He promised that the ugly situation would soon be over.
He added that the distribution of the farm inputs was to help the benefiting farmers record bumper harvests and by doing so improve their livelihoods.
“Aside from distributing these inputs, we will soon flag off the distribution of fertilizers at subsidized rate. The government will avail the farmers 40 per cent subsidy to further encourage massive food production in the state.
“I urge the Federal Government to do everything possible to ensure that the displaced persons, most of whom are farmers, go back to their ancestral homes,” Governor Ortom added.