Agric Minister to embark on zonal visit, says Technical Adviser

·       Emphasizes  mechanization for reduction cost

In his bid to get the grass root stakeholders’ view and contributions to national agricultural development plan, the Minister of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) Alhaji Muhammad Sabo Nanono has scheduled to visit all the six geopolitical zones in the country.

The Technical Adviser (TA) to the Minister on Knowledge and Communication, Barister Richard Mark Mbaram revealed this during the 4^th annual general meeting of Cassava Cottage Processing and Marketing Association of Nigeria (CACOPMAN) held at Ibadan.

Mbaram said that the minister is very passionate about private sector involvement in the agricultural policy and implementation strategies, and he has planned to visit all the six geo-political zones starting with South-South (SS) between 19-21th March as South West would be followed.

The purpose of the scheduled regional visits according to the minister’s TA was to enable him have a close interaction with the grass root stakeholders in the agricultural sector, and importantly to get their own side of experiences and proffered solutions for the way forward in the sector.

According to Barrister Mbaram ‘’ the Honourable Minister has decided to come and discuss national issues with you. He has decided to sit with you and listen to get your feedback and also sit with the states’ directors, get feedback to understand where the shoe pitches. The first place of visit is South-South between 19-21th of this month. I will arrange for the one of South West to come next since i am now being informed that this is the cradle of agricultural activities in Nigeria. So he is going to be in Ibadan and all other zones. The key point is that the Minister will be hearing you at a close range as he does not want to sit in Abuja. He is always concern about private sector inputs and participation in any committee’’

Speaking on land clearing to reduce cost of production he said that the Federal Government (FG) through the FMARD has already put in place mechanization centres across all the local governments of the federation towards ensuring tractorization and other inputs availability that would make the prices of different crops very competitive in the market adding that our deficit in tractors utilization per hectare is very low when compared with country like Kenya.

According to him ‘’ infrastructure is a major challenge; this has put Nigerian producers to a disadvantage position as it relate to market because price is the core issue that attracts consumer.  There is no way a consumer would want to go for a higher product of similar value. 

Land preparation is profoundly a major asset to primary production as it relates to crops production exercise. The cost of it given the reality then has made Government to intervene. You will then understand why the Minister is particular about mechanization across the country. This is number one of his policy thrust.  He wants to set up mechanization clusters, in fact that process is already on across all the local government cluster of mechanization.  And it is an opportunity for you to have services as a component, and training is also a component of it. Capacity building becomes also important in the realm of what we are talking about. You can now see that it was an input system of vacuum we are trying to create, and we are not isolatedly dumping tractors on people. Like people will always say that our tractor mechanization deficit in the country is shameful to say the least. We cannot afford a country like Kenya to be leading Nigeria in terms of per capital tractor utilization on a hectare of land. So we are doing that. All we need to do is form ourselves to cooperatives and write to the ministry as there is provision for you’’