Diversification: Fed Govt endorses 129-page agricultural roadmap

President Muhammadu Buhari,

With  approval of a roadmap in agriculture by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), the Federal Government has demonstrated its seriousness to diversify the economy from oil.

THE Federal Government has taken its economy diversification policy a step forward with the endorsement a new roadmap in the agricultural sector at yesterday’s Federal Council Executive (FEC) meeting.

Agriculture Minister Audu Ogbeh said the FEC took the bold step at the meeting, chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari, to boost local food production for self-sufficiency and export in the next three years.

He dropped the hint in Abuja while addressing State House reporters in the company of Women Affairs Minister Aisha Alhassan.

Contained in a 129-page document and tagged: “The Green Alternative”, the roadmap is expected to be unveiled soon.

The President Buhari-administration has identified agriculture and solid minerals as priority sectors for development to diversify the economy from oil.

Giving an insight into the roadmap, the minister said the 129-page document intends to amongst other things, raise agriculture’s share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 23 per cent; increase the share of labour force to 70 per cent; agricultural activity mix by 85 per cent crop production with a 15 per cent increase in livestock and other non-crop.

It also seeks to enhance the country’s foreign exchange (forex) earning capacity through agricultural exports by growing the agriculture’s share of non-oil exports earnings to 75 per cent.

The roadmap will also facilitate the government’s capacity to meet its obligations to the citizenry on food security, safety and quality nutrition as well as increase budgetary provision for the agriculture sector by 2.0 per cent.

On the ‘Green Alternative’ blue print, Ogbeh said: “It is a detailed document that outlines our policies and our objectives in trying to see agriculture as the next biggest alternative in our drive to diversify the economy.

“It outlines virtually everything we need to do; every policy we need to undertake to achieve self-sufficiency in agriculture and also to become major exporter of agriculture products.

“The situation in which we have been many decades ago is unacceptable. We are working hard on the staples to satisfy local production and we are fully aware that there is a major concern in the country for food self-sufficiency and that there is crisis in many families as a result of serious food shortage.

“But we are working hard and thank God that ours has not become as bad as one South American country, which was also a major oil producing country, by that I mean Venezuela, which situation is definitely a 100 times worse than ours.

“The point is that where we are going, we believe that in a short while, in another year and half in the maximum, we should be reasonably self-sufficient in grains like rice, maize and beans.

“We may not achieve everything in wheat but we will be very close to our targets. Other things are also there in the roadmap. And that is what council endorsed this (yesterday) afternoon.”

Reeling out statistics on food imports, the minister said: “Food has many species and varieties; we import about 40 to 50 per cent of the rice we eat; at a time it was almost 100 per cent, costing $5 million daily. That has been the situation in the last 20 years.

“We still import almost 70 per cent of wheat for bread?. We import about five million eggs per day from South Africa and some other countries. But we don’t import yams, garri and we don’t import beans. We use to import beans from Burkina Faso but that has stopped. We don’t import chicken although smugglers are quite busy every day. We import fish worth $600 million annually, but this is on the decrease because local fish production is increasing.

“We still import tomato paste. We are going to halt that in the next three months because local production capacity is almost satisfactory now. This is because the quality of the imported paste is doubtful. The importers are going to be very insistence that we can’t do it on our own but we will stand our ground.

“We import honey to the tune of about $100 million per annum; we still import cookies and biscuits and even toothpick but all these did not happen in one day. The idea is to reduce these imports.

“We import a lot of milk and some local production by Friesland and some of the policies we put in place will reduce and also eliminate. But we can’t achieve self-sufficiency absolutely in the next one year but we are approaching there.”

He said the Federal Government has concluded plans to protect farms and agricultural investments against itinerant herdsmen and other criminals with the deployment of members of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

According to him, the deployment will check incidences of abduction of farmers and destruction of their farm lands by hoodlums in herdsmen’s garbs.

According to him, the measure became necessary forv the success of the government’s quest to making Nigeria a destination of first choice for foreign investors in the agriculture sector.

He said his ministry and that of the Interior were collaborating on how to make the farmlands safe for investment.

His words: “I had a meeting with the Interior Minister (Abdulrahman Dambazzau) and we were looking at the security situation in agriculture. Sometime last year, some gunmen went to Chief Olu Falae’s farm – a Nigerian in status, in age and ranking – and took him away and marched him around and forced him to trek 10 kilometers. They even carried him on their backs.

“Many more farmers are coming in including foreign investors and they stand the risk of being subjected to this kind of humiliation. So, we are talking with Ministry of Interior that we have to put measures in place.

“These things are happening in other countries too, where the civil defence corps may have to train a special department to protect huge investors and investment in their farms for a fee, because kidnapping will not stop.

“From the security point of view, we have to take measures to make sure that people who invest are protected. In other countries of the world, you may have noticed that people live on their farms. You hardly see a farmer who lives in the city. The farmers live on the farms with members of their family. You cannot do that here.

“They will come and take you, your wife and children in the name of kidnapping. We have to stop it and we have to use the legitimate instrument of state to do it legitimately because the farmer has no right to buy an AK47 to protect himself.”

Ogbeh went on: “The crisis between herdsmen and farmers will soon end. In few days, we shall begin to run a programme – padock development here in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). We have got very good seeds of grass which we are going to start planting.

“Eventually and in the next one year, I hope we shall move most of our cows into ranches and reserves depending on different terminologies people want to hear.

“Some people don’t want to hear about grazing reserve, the Women Affairs Minister disclosed that FEC resolved to cede portions of two federal roads in Kaduna to the state government based on its request.

Alhassan said: “Council also approved the memo presented by Minister of Power, Works and Housing for the re-designation of two roads in Kaduna State from being federal to state roads based on the request by the Kaduna State governor, to Mr. President.

“The two roads are the Nnamdi Azkiwe Expressway – Kaduna Bye-pass popularly called and the popular Ahmadu Bello Way which runs across almost inside Kaduna town.

“They are presently federal roads but he (Governor Nasir El-Rufai requested that they be redesignated as state roads so that they will have the power without any inhibitation to work on the road to make them better for Kaduna indigenes.

“The council was very pleased with that approach, because ordinarily, other state governors should have requested for permission to repair and be reimbursed but he asked for outright handing over to the Kaduna State government so that they can take care of it as their own.

“The Council also welcome the idea of the governor that the government should complete the eastern by-pass ?which is outside Kaduna linking the Northcentral to Northwest.

“The Council also appealed to other state governments that can afford to take over federal roads to lessen the burden on federal government, to enable them repair and maintain road as quick as possible, so that they don’t go into total deterioration.”

Reported By  AUGUSTINE EHIKIOYA.