In an effort to tackle high rate of hunger which has bedeviled Nigerians in recent times, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari has flagged off first edition of National Dry Season Farming in Cross River State.
The measure was a step taken by the federal government to boost food production, encourage sustainability and guarantee food security with a bid to tackle hunger and starvation in the state.
Kyari stressed that through a loan of $134million from African Development Bank (AfDB), the federal government would boost farmers’ capacity to increase production of staple food crops like wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, soybean, cassava among other crops through dry and wet season farming.
Speaking while flagging off the programme, Kyari stated that the ceremony marked the commencement of 2024/25 dry season farming and maiden edition of wheat cultivation under the National Agricultural Growth Support Scheme-Agro Pocket (NAGS-AP) Project in the state.
He recalled that President Bola Tinubu declared emergency on food production to enable all Nigerians get easy accessibility to quality food at affordable rates.
“It is also worthy to note that the National Dry Season Farming was re-introduced to boost year-round agricultural production and with a view to guarantee national food and nutrition security in the country,” he said.
Kyari stated that through NAGS- AP, government is able to support 107,429 wheat farmers under the phase 1 of the 2023/2024 dry season farming.
He stressed that a total of 43,997 rice farmers have also been supported under the second phase of the 2023/2024 dry season with recent 192,095 rice, maize, sorghum/millet, soybean and cassava farmers under the 2024 wet season across the 36 states including the Federal Capital Territory.
“The implementation of the programmes has substantially increased food production in the country, thereby decreasing the food supply demand gap,” he said.
The minister further stressed that under NAGS-AP, an ICT-based Agricultural Inputs delivery platform has been put in place to address continued rise in food prices through easy accessibility and affordability under the programme.
Measures under this programme include subsidised agricultural inputs such as fertilizers while high quality seed varieties are provided to the small holder farmers in dry and wet seasons to encourage continuous year-round farming.
Richard Ndoma, Leadership News
