Benue State governor, Mr. Gabriel Suswam, has disclosed that the state government has concluded plans to organize a competion to select the best farmers in the state.

He spoke in Zaki-Biam while flagging off the 2008 fertilizer sales in the state.

'The sale of fertilizer at a subsidized price early during the planting season is an incentive in this direction,' he stated.

According to the governor, tractors, trucks and other vehicles will be won at the competition which he said would be organized to showcase to the world the abundant agricultural produce in the state.

Mr. Suswam announced that a bag of fertilizer would be sold at N2, 500 this cropping season explaining that even at that the commodity had been heavily subsidized as the state acqured it at N7, 000 a bag.

He appealed to the people of the state to take advantage of the availability of the product to boost farm yield rather than engaging in sharp practices pledging that the state government would monitor the product to ensure that middlemen did not hoard to sell at exhorbitant prices.

Governor Suswam assured farmers that the product will be available throughout all the state during the season and urged them not to resort to panick buying adding that the Zaki-Biam depot contained 82 trucks of the commodity.

Speaking at the occasion, state Commissioner of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr. Benjamin Ashaver, stated that 'at the moment, over 10, 000 metric tons of assorted brands of fertilizer are in Makurdi, Gboko, Katsina-Ala, Otukpo, Zaki-Biam and Logo distribution centrs.'

He said sales of fertilizer would commence in all the distribution centres and that payment for the commodity would be through the banks stressing that all divisional agriculture officers has been directed to pay all the proceeds from sales to the banks, assignedøø to them as government would not tolerate any lapses in this regard.

According to Mr. Ashaver, by next year every local government headquarters will become a distribution centre.