From Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Senator Abubakar Kyari said the reform in agriculture introduced by President Bola Tinubu saved Nigeria from a worse food crisis.
Kyari revealed this at an interactive session with journalists in Maiduguri, Borno’s capital, yesterday.
“If the president had not done some reforms in the agriculture sector, Nigeria might have faced a worse food crisis,” the minister told journalists.
He said part of the reforms was the change in the name and focus of the ministry from Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to Agriculture and Food Security. He said the president’s decision, announced at the constitution of the Federal Executive, was to address the looming food shortage and crisis then.
He highlighted the interventions from the president, which included the release of over 100,000 metric tons of fertilizers, 45,000 tons of rice, and 42,000 tons of Soghum. He said they were aimed at tackling food crisis.
The minister disclosed that the government invested in farm mechanisation to increase food production and storage facilities across the 774 local governments in the country.
“We are working on affordability of food prices and welfare of farmers. We want to address the issue of consumer welfare and producers welfare,” he announced.
He said the activities of unscrupulous elements in the country who hoard foods created scarcity and pushed up food prices. He however expressed delight that the FG intervention forced many of them to release their stock into markets, leading to increase in supply and drop in prices.
He also announced government initiative to capture statistics of mechanized farmers and farm sites. He said government is working on provision of farming machine that will be programmed for each of local government area.
“We have sighed an MOU with the National Identity Management (NIM) to undertake this data capturing so that the government interventions can go directly to the right people. We don’t want a situation where farmers without farmlands will take these intervention and disappear,” he maintained.