National Assembly galvanises support for mechanized food productivity

*Minister hails the NBS, Lalong commends

The National Assembly representatives at the 45^th  National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD) have both posited that value chain food productivity through the use of modern technologies be intensified to reduce drudgery, and enhance high productivity for food security and wealth creation, just as the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and rural development (FMARD) has promised improvement through the establishment of cottage industries to enhance competitiveness and comparative advantages.

 Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Sen. Bima Mohammed Enegi in his remarks at the NCARD  demanded that more agricultural mechanization need to be deployed into our food productivity at all the value chains for competitiveness to achieve more nutrition, job and wealth creation towards food security.

Sen. Enegi said that there is a need to improve the agricultural value chain for increased food productivity, saying that achieving this is not a rocket science, but rather a need to fund research institutions well enough, and give more support to National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization (NCAM) for local domestication of simple equipments.

He alluded to the poor implementation of agricultural mechanization policy as part of our problem, stressing that we need to be properly positioned in order to be able to harness the opportunities in mechanization to enhance our agricultural development towards taking advantages in the war going between Russian-Ukraine to enhance our food productivity.

Also speaking the Chairman House Committee on Agric Colleges and Research Institutions, Honourable Munir Babba also joined his colleague to say there is need to deploy mechanization into value chain food productivity toward national development, adding we must grow crops that are adaptable to our ecologies.

Hon. Babba frowned at the idea of importing yams from Ghana in view of the enormous quantities we grow here, saying there is no reason why ours should not be exported to international markets for more foreign earnings and job creations.

Meanwhile the Permanent Secretary (PS) FMARD, Dr. Ernest Umakhihe has said his ministry would collaborate with state governments and other stakeholders to improve the agricultural commodities value chains to enhance the livelihood of the smallholder farmers through establishment of more cottage industries to enhance productivity at the same NCARD meeting.

Umakhihe stated that the ministry would prioritise its efforts of increasing agricultural processing capacity in the country through the establishment of several cottage industries for the production of staple food products in a manner that would encourage competitiveness and enhance comparative advantage.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Mohammad Mohmood Abubakar also has subsisted on the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) economic figures to galvanise the achievement of the sector among six others , saying the statistics have pointed  to the fact that his ministry has tried to ensure food security for the entire nation.

 Dr. Mohammad Abubakar stated that the sector topped the chart in a survey report made available by NBS, noting that of seven (7) sectors identified to have contributed to the nation's economy in the second quarter of 2022, Agriculture out-performed six (6) other sectors comprising Trade, Telecommunications, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Real Estate as well as Finance & Insurance.

The Minister said that Agriculture alone contributed 23.3% to the GDP within the six months of year 2022 , which supports the positive trend of the previous years’ performance of 25.88% 2021,  26.21 (2020), 25.16% (2019), 25.13% (2018), 25.08% (2017), 24.45% (2016) and 23.11% (2015), adding that the data had reflected the impact of the implementation of programmes and projects in the agricultural sector despite the security challenges in the country.

He said the sector is not only feeding millions of people, but has also contributed enormously to the overall development of the economy, saying that ‘’ it has been consistently prioritized by successive administrations towards ensuring food security and attaining national development plans".

Dr. Abubakar disclosed that the ministry had facilitated the production and distribution of 920 metric tons of assorted improved seeds of cashew, sesame, sorghum, maize and rice along with 67,000 litres of agro-chemicals to 1,397,469 farmers, and 14,785 agricultural equipment for groundnut processing, rice mills, cashew processing, oil palm mills with component tractors, combine harvester tricycles for farmers, colour sorter and 2000 sprayers to farmers across the country.

He said further that the ministry had also trained 153,124 women and youths  on various agricultural crops, fishery and livestock value chain and empowered 142,703, trained 214,787 farmers on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and 220,018 farmers on Farmer Business School (FBS), adding that 3,985 extension agents across the country on agricultural value chains and extension methods were also trained with establishment of nine extension centres  in  Anambra, Oyo, Cross River, Kano, Bauchi, Niger, Benue, Edo and Katsina States.

He added that recently, the ministry was able to set up a fact finding mission under the  leadership of the National Root Crop Research Institute (NRCRI), Umudike to investigate the scourge of the potato blight disease that has ravage some farms in Plateau State with a view to finding a solution to the problem.

In his remarks, the Executive Governor of Plateau State/ Chairman Northern Governors Forum, Hon. Simon Lalong commended the minister and his team for ensuring that the council meeting was held in Plateau State saying that potato farming has been escalated from subsistence farming to a large scale activity that was aimed at supplying the domestic market and export.

The Governor drew the attention of the Minister to the increase in the incidences of potato farms being damaged by blight disease which had almost wiped out the existing low yielding and degenerated seeds, thereby appealing  the Federal Government for some compensation for the huge losses recorded by farmers.