By Mohammed Kandi
Nigeria’s rice production has received a major boost following the signing of tripartite implementation agreement between the Federal Government, Taraba State and Kenya’s Dominion Rice and Integrated Farms Limited on the establishment of a 40-million-dollar integrated farm in the state.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, at the agreement signing ceremony said the production would be fully integrated in a 30,000 hectare farming area so as to rapidly transform the country’s moribund agricultural sector.
Dr Adesina also said that under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), the Federal Government, was ready to reposition agriculture as a business that will create millions of jobs, grow the country’s foreign exchange and reduce dependency on food import.
“Yes, food security is important, but given our immense natural resources, our goal is even bigger; we want to make Nigeria an agriculturally-industrialised economy and this requires that we change how business is being done in agricultural sector,” the minister stated.
According to him, through the project tagged “Massive Green Revolution on Rice”, Nigeria was expected to become self-sufficient in rice production within the next four years and the impact to be felt within two years.
The minister, who regrets huge funds being spent on food import, explained that “Nigeria spends over N1.3 Trillion importing just four basic food items; wheat (N635 Billion), rice (365 Billion), sugar (N217 Billion) and fish (N97 Billion).”
Dr Adesina declared that the Federal Government was making efforts to move Nigeria from a food importing nation into a food self-sufficient and exporting nation, saying the project would save the country more than N54 billion in foreign exchange annually from the amount spent on rice importation.
He assured that in addition to some young Taraba farmers that would receive training in Kenya, over 14, 000 farmers would form cluster groups, while an additional 1,000 individual farmers would be created and all would be linked to a world class rice mill to be installed by Dominion farms.
Also speaking, former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, charged African leaders on food security and a lasting solution to food shortage in Africa.
Obasanjo, who declared that a lot of Africans ware hungry, said quick attention at the highest political level by the African leaders must given to the agricultural sector, while calling on stakeholders in the sector to work hard towards the success of the project.
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