Food crisis: FG, states to distribute free fertilisers to farmers

The prevailing food crisis in the country and how Nigerians can be salvaged from it were at the top of the deliberations of the National Economic Council, NEC, meeting chaired by the Vice President on Thursday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Beyond this, the meeting deliberated extensively on the need to distribute fertilisers to the farming community in the country free of charge as a way of encouraging them to produce food massively.

NEC equally reviewed plans to import 2000 tractors into the country to help farmers maximise productivity. These initiatives come as Nigerians have been grappling with a high inflationary trend, especially with staple foods.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Abubakar Kyari said he briefed the Economic Council on the national food security policies.

According to him: “The unit is made up of ministers and also governors, one from every geopolitical region, that is in a sense to have that coordination between federal and the subnationals to deliver Mr. President’s agenda on food security.

“As Honorable Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, I also briefed Council on the interventions on the 42,000 metric tons of which all had been delivered to all the states and then 20 trailers of rice per state. We have also released over 1,500,000 bags of fertiliser, which is under evacuation by the state governments.”

He said further: “Then I also went ahead and briefed Council on the mechanisation programs undertaken by the administration of President Bola Tinubu. We have four in place now. One, the Greener Hope, is a 10-year, $1 billion consortium led by Origin Group, to syndicate the Greener Hope Agricultural Reform where they will set up 1000 agro-sector service providers across the country with tractors.

“We’ll have a minimum of 2000 tractors a year for the next five years and all other aggregation of agricultural commodities is going to be utilised by at least nothing less than 600,000 youths to man these 1000 service centres. The elaborate plan will be rolled out as soon as it’s feasible. The project was passed by FEC on the 25th of June, which was just two days ago, I briefed NEC on that particular project.

“The other one is the John Deere Tata arrangement, for which we’re also expecting 2000 tractors before the end of the year. Then the Greener Imperative Project, which is still in the works, is a 950 million euro project that will soon be unveiled. Then the last one and the most recent one is the Belarus tractors, where it seeks to supply 2000 tractors per year for the next five years, with 9000 implements and spare parts, and 50 service vehicles and maintenance centres. At the same time, we also have ten 150-horsepower combined harvesters.

“I visited the factory just recently, I came back about two weeks ago, where we inspected the supply line and within the next 60 days, we’re supposed to have started delivery of those tractors and combine harvesters.”