The federal government has said it will embark on a programme this year to identify real farmers across the country for support and ban those it described as “portfolios and political farmers” nationwide.
The government is also developing strategy to direct attention to institutions with massive land to embark on massive production to fight food insecurity and high cost of food stuff in the country.
Speaking Thursday in Abuja at a special roundtable conversation on “the food price, the forex and the farmer” organised by the Progressive Forum to mark the 44th birthday of its leader, Barrister Ismaeel Ahmed, the Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, declared that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had given the ministry all the necessary supports to ensure the real farmers are properly targeted.
The minister said: “In terms of support, I am happy the farmers have realised that all countries provide support for agriculture in billions, in equipments. Well, they call it subsidy but we in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture call it support. So, if you think subsidy is the problem, we have banned subsidy, what we are giving is support. There could be technical support, there could be infrastructural support, there could be advisory extension support. Support is support. What it means is that the farmers need to be aided to achieve maximum productivity that we need.
“I will also tell you for a fact that having analysed what we met on ground when we came in last year, and we realised it is important that we recognise the value of our smallholder farmers, but we can also do with supporting those who have massively invested in different farming operations across the country, who need one or two support from government but have not been able to get it.
“This year we intend to start a programme that will highlight who these people are, where they are located, what farming operation they do, so that we can key them in as verified genuine farmers, not the portfolios farmers, not the political farmers, not the fake farmers who come in with ten and thousands of hectares claim just to siphon whatever support government is making available for farmers, and at the end of the day on paper, we are supposed to have massive production, but in reality there is nothing to show for it.
“These have been part of the problems we met. But the good news here is that based on our engagements with sub-nationals, almost all the state governments have agreed with us that it is time to burnish anybody that is not a real farmer, who come and tap into what the government is giving to some real farmers who have genuine operations. That is a massive paradigm shift because the reality is before us now.”
While calling on the gathering to continue to lend their voices to encourage farming especially in local areas, the minister assured that “fertilisers that was given to the ministry by the CBN, by the grace of God, we are working on how we will be able to deploy it this raining season that’s coming, efficiently.
“In fact, one of the programmes we have started discussing is to make sure that we direct our attention to institutions that have massive lands on how to bring them into production. So, we are currently receiving data from our various institutions, Universities, Colleges of Education, Secondary Schools and others across the country.”
Speaking at the event, the celebrant, Barrister Ismaeel, said the country needed to know what the government was doing to stabilize the challenges of food and forex crisis causing hardship for Nigerians.
…NEXIM chief charges govs
In her presentation, the Executive Director, Business Development of the Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Hon Stella Okotete, called on the anti-graft agencies to ensure the recovery of over N100 billion intervention fund accessed by dubious Nigerians under the pretext of enhancing food production in the country.
Okotete also called for capacity screening test for aspiring governors in the country.
She said it is unfortunate that those who enjoyed government interventions and rebates have failed to utilise the monies they collected when former President Muhammadu Buhari held sway.
Acknowledging that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been overwhelmed with litany of corrupt cases, she maintained that it would not be difficult to trace the culprits since the monies were disbursed to them through commercial banks in the country.
Calling for a master plan to revive agriculture in the three tiers of government, the Delta born APC chieftain said it behooves state governors of the federation to take a cue from Governor Umaru Bago of Niger state who have put in place measures to revive agriculture in the state.
She added: “The federal government must stop smiling with the states and local councils by making sure they do the right thing. They must come up with a master plan like the way Niger state is doing. What are Rivers and Bayelsa states that collect more money than Niger state doing with their money in this regard?
“Somebody said we need to do capacity screening on our governors because a lot of them are intellectually lazy. We need to draw up an agriculture master plan to boost agriculture in the country.”
Okotete, who blamed insecurity and removal of fuel subsidy for high cost of food items, called on Nigerians to embrace digital farming to ensure massive agricultural yield and food production.
Calling for the scrapping of the moribund Bank of Agriculture (BOA), she called on the authorities to create a new entity that could offer credit facilities to farmers as is obtained in China where there is food sufficiency.
Applauding the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Yemi Cardoso for restoring sanity in the foreign exchange market, she blamed over reliance by Nigerians on imported goods for the fall in the value of the naira as against the dollar.
“When you have that pressure and everything is dollarised, we will continue to have the issue of a fall in the value of the naira. We must support local manufacturing. It is not rocket science. We are all an import dependent country. We must support made in Nigeria product to address the challenge,” she further added.
