There are fears of looming famine in the country. And this is not unconnected to the huge desire by farmers to earn dollars.
Recently, it was gathered that grains
and other farm produce became scarce in the country after farmers
decided to take their produce across the borders for sale to earn
dollars, thereby starving the local market.
The President of the Poultry Association
of Nigeria, Dr. Ayoola Oduntan, attributed the high cost of poultry
feed to the scarcity of maize and soya beans.
He said, “The price of feed has gone up;
and feed is the most important component of production. For instance,
in egg production, the feed is the most expensive part. What makes up
the feed is maize, 40-50 per cent; and soya beans, 20-30 per cent. So,
70 per cent of the cost of production is made up of feed.
“Now that is the beginning of harvest,
when the price of maize is supposed to be at its lowest, we are
currently buying maize at N120,000 per tonne. Soya beans used to be
between N80,000 and N100,000 per tonne; now, it is N140,000 per tonne.
When it was N80,000, we thought it was too expensive.”
However, recently, the Federal
Government came out to allay the public fears over famine, assuring the
people of sufficient mechanisms to achieve food security in the country.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who gave the assurance, said the Federal
Government had engaged in the buy- back of assorted grains under the
Guarantee Minimum Price Programme for restocking of strategic silo
complexes.
He also said that farmers in some states
of the federation had already commenced preparation for the dry season
farming to ensure adequate food security across the country.
He added that the government was poised
to make farming an all-year business by creating dams and lakes in every
part of the country to support irrigation system.
He noted that crops would thrive and yield better through the irrigation system.
He said, “Nigerians have no reason to
panic; we have made arrangement for some states to start planting so
that we have second crops by April.”
Ogbeh disclosed that Nigeria had signed
an agreement with the government of Morocco on local production of
fertilizer, with a target of one million tonnes. This would boost food
production in the country.
He added that the introduction of
soil-specific fertilizer application, developed by the ministry, would
go a long way in increasing high crop yield.
According to him, a total of 30,000
slots have been allocated to the ministry under the N-power scheme of
the Federal Government.
This, he said, would enable the people
to be trained under the agricultural development programmes as
agriculture extension workers and they would serve in their respective
local government areas.
Ogbeh added that the ministry had
acquired 110 various capacities of rice mills of 10 tonnes, 20 tonnes,
50 tonnes and 100 tonnes per day for distribution to cluster farmers to
boost rice production and milling capacity in the country as a way of
attaining food sufficiency.
The minister admitted that for the first
time in the history of Nigeria, the country was witnessing strong
purchase of grains from as far as Namibia and other countries, which
signalled a challenge to the nation as well as a benefit to Nigerian
farmers.
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