The federal government through the Ministry of Agriculture has stated that it hopes to produce around 31 million metric tonnes of grains in 2024 as part of efforts to combat food inflation across the country and address President Tinubu’s food security emergency.
In July, President Tinubu declared an emergency on food security and moved the issues relating to food security to the National Security Council. Nigeria’s food inflation for October stands at 31.5% and has risen consistently since the President’s declaration in July.
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Dr. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi stated this during the opening session of the 6th edition of Seed Connect Conference and Exhibition with the theme ‘’ Global Declaration of Food Emergency – The Role of the Seed Industry and Ensuring Africa’s Food and Nutrition Security’’
Sen. Aliyu stated that five crops the federal government has earmarked for ambition in 2024 and stated that over 300 thousand worth of seeds have been provided to the farmers.
He further outlines critical pathways of achieving the target such as certification of planting materials and other short- and medium-term strategies.
What he said
- He stated thus, “Nigeria’s seed requirement/need for 5 major crops of Rice, Maize, Wheat, Soyabeans and Sorghum in 2024 is 312,555.69MT of seeds which is expected to give almost 31million Mt of grains’’.
- “The Ministry has outlined a series of critical pathways to solve the food security challenges. These pathways are streamlined into short-term, intermediate and long-term actions”
- “One immediate priority is the certification of available planting material for some food security crops in the dry season farming of 2023/2024 which we flagged off in Jigawa state last Saturday, 25 November 2023”
Support from Agricultural finance institutions
He mentioned that the ministry aimed to cultivate more than 70,000 hectares of wheat with financial assistance from the African Development Bank (AfDB) as part of the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro Pocket Scheme (NAGS-AP) project.
The Minister further noted that the National Agricultural Development Fund together with the Bank of Agriculture and the Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation will continue to provide financing support to farmers, and it will be short-term.
