Minister advocates meeting farmers regularly to end hunger

*Rice awardee promises export

The Agric Minister State, Alhaji Mustapha Baba Shehuri has posited that constant meeting with farmers is a pineace to ending food hunger in the country, just as a rice farmer, Alhaji Muazu,  an awardee also assured Nigerians soonest exporting of processed rice to other countries.

Alhaji Mustapha Baba Shehuri said this during the roundtable discussion on Agro-preneurs Success Stories and Mentorship Clinic to mark the 2021 world Food Day at Abuja.

Shehuri who assured millions of small-scale farmers of the readiness of the ministry to ensure food security also stressed the need for constant meetings with these primary food producers so as to have more informative interactions towards effective executions of strategies to end hunger in the country.

He suggests the need to fix the disconnect in the agricultural system adding that ‘’ the  holding of such gathering should be constant with farmers to help them to create effective impact through productive information sharing towards raising awareness on food security and ending hunger together’’

The state minister encourages farmers on the need to ensure standard productivity that would enhance export of agricultural commodities without any fear of being rejected in any market outside the country for more economic earning and job creation.

Earlier, the main minister, Dr. Mohammed Abubarkar assured stakeholders in the sector the determination of the Federal Government (FG) to ensure self sufficiency and enriched food nutrition towards wealth creation along the value chains system through proactive investment to execute the government policies and programmes.

Abubakar called on investors to explore the potentials in Nigeria’s livestock, horticulture, fisheries and other sub sectors of the agricultural value chains, saying their investment would ensure the desired dream of robust economic and sustainable viable commercial agriculture in the country.

 According to him “The potentials across crops, livestock, horticulture and fisheries sub-sectors are enormous. Therefore, it is the ingenuity of entrepreneurs like some of you here that would add value to our produce and guarantee the revenue generation potentials of the sector

‘’The expectations we have in agriculture to take Nigeria to the promise land can only be achieved when our entrepreneurs take deliberate actions to invest in different value-chains. It is the involvement of entrepreneurs like you that would provide innovative solutions to the immense challenges in the sector”

The minister credited the sector for being the only one that could attain a level of appreciative economic contribution to the country through fractional productivity despite the last year pandemic disease, saying  ‘’ it is on record that Agriculture was the only sector in Nigeria that recorded marginal growth during the Covid-19 lock-down spanning through the 4th quarter of 2019 to 1st and 2nd quarter of year 2020, with an average contribution of 24.23% to the country’s GDP, (Statistic 1st/2nd Quarter Report, 2020). The impressive 2021 second quarter growth rate of 5.01% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) released on Thursday 19th August by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBC) has agriculture (crop production) and food manufacturing as major contributors’’

One of the award recipients being recognised for positive contributions in the sector, Alhaji Shehu Muazu while speaking to journalists said that more processed rice would be exported by 2022 as he commended the effort of President Mohammadu Buhari’s government to repositioning the agricultural sector towards commercialization and economic empowerment of farmers

Muazu said that  "we are very optimistic that before the Buhari government leaves power, we would have started exporting more rice outside the country to other countries", adding this would create more jobs across the country as it is expected that more foreign exchange will also be earned through this process.

Other recipients  include; Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Alhaji Muhammad Damakka, Otunba Dr. Gabriel Ogunsanaya, Dr. Ayoola Oduntan, Dr. Graham Hefer , Mrs. Catherine Ezenyirieka ,the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) ,Zaria.