The House of Representatives has said the prolonged insecurity in the North East and other parts of the country has had devastating effects on Nigeria’s food production in the last decade leading to the harsh reality confronting the nation.
Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu stated this in an opening remark at the Sectoral Debate held at the House of Tuesday.
He said the food shortage had affected the socio-economic spheres in the country and was posing an imminent threat to the country’s stability.
In his submission, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, said Nigeria must make agriculture an economic venture rather than a means of survival to ensure sustained food security.
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He noted that Nigeria’s food production was largely subsistence dominated by small holder farmers who grow what to eat and survive with only little going out of their households.
He said plans were being put in place to expand food production by utilising the vast land available.
Kyari added that there were various programmes on ground involving thousands of farmers in the country to improve the production of rice, wheat, cassava and other crops.
The minister said the government had begun talks with large scale farming entities like WACOT, Olam and others for an intensive mechanised agriculture.
He lamented that Nigeria, which needs over 70,000 tractors, currently has less than 5,000.
He, however, said the government had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with an American company to bring 10,000 tractors in five years, adding that 2,000 are expected to arrive before the onset of wet season.
The minister also informed that, a programme, Green Imperative, which is a $1 billion dollar arrangement to establish a one-stop shop agricultural service centre in all the 774 LGAs is also in the pipeline among others.
According to him, flooding, crop failures experienced in some places as well as flooding and smuggling contributed a lot to the hardship being experienced.
The minister also lamented that lack of fertiliser was threatening dry season farming as it had become expensive and unaffordable to average Nigerian rural farmers who are actively engaged in dry season rice, maize, tomato, wheat and other crops farming.
He said the government had also initiated talks with major fertiliser producers to address the issue of price and availability.
He also lamented that gas, the main feedstock for Urea production, is being priced in Dollars instead of Naira, adding that the government is also talking with NNPCL on the pricing of the 35% reserve for local producers to be done in Naira.
In his submission, the Comptroller General of Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, said that they have already commenced the sale of seized food items to vulnerable Nigerians to address the high food inflation and scarcity across the country.
He added that customs had intercepted hundreds of trucks trying to smuggle locally manufactured food items out of the country and seized hundreds of truckloads of banned imported food items.
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