By Our Correspondent <\/p>\n
Agric and Food Security, Minister Abubakar Kyari, on Monday, assured farmers of credit facilities to boost agriculture production in the country.<\/p>\n
He gave the assurance at a one-day Public Hearing held in Abuja organised by the Senate Committee on Agriculture Production Services and Rural Development.<\/p>\n
Recall that the Public hearing was on three bills; “Cassava Flour (Mandatory Inclusion into Flour Production) (Establishment) Bill, 2023.<\/p>\n
“The National Food Reserve Agency and for Related Matters and Rice Development Council of Nigeria (Establishment) Bill 2024”.<\/p>\n
Kyari who expressed joy over the crash in the prices of food items said that the ministry would look for mechanisms to tackle the high costs of farm inputs.<\/p>\n
“I’m happy with the crash of prices, but it’s the inputs that we are working on like fertilizer, irrigation and all that.<\/p>\n
“So that is what we are trying to find mechanisms where farmers will have access to credit and at the same time cheaper products.<\/p>\n
“Yes, prices have crashed. Consumers are happy But I know farmers are not happy with it. <\/p>\n
“So now what we are trying to do is to try to balance the welfare of the population and the welfare of the farmers. <\/p>\n
“If the cost of production is more than the market price, then how can we incentivise them to produce? <\/p>\n
On post harvest losses recorded, Kyari said “we have already made a legacy project on the post-harvest losses, which includes storage at the community level.<\/p>\n
“Not the silos that we have that are situated in urban areas, but in community levels. This is what we are driving at. <\/p>\n
“We want to make a new harvest silo programme that 85 per cent of the storage will be at those farming community levels to replace those local mud silos,” he said.<\/p>\n
He disclosed that Nigeria’s annual demand for maize is about 25 million tons. <\/p>\n
Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Saliu Mustapha said the bills have successfully scaled the second reading in the senate.<\/p>\n
“They now stand before us for your invaluable scrutiny and contribution”.<\/p>\n
Mustapha who also sponsored the bill on Cassava Flour (Mandatory Inclusion into Flour Production) said the bill sought to blend our abundant cassava into wheat production.<\/p>\n
“Thereby reducing our crippling N5 billion dollar annual wheat importation, creating jobs for our teaming unemployed youth and improving the living standard of smallholder farmers” .<\/p>\n
On his part, Secretary, Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria, Mr Adeyemi Conion who supported the bill said that “it is long overdue”.<\/p>\n
He said that the bill when passed, would create job opportunities for the teeming unemployed youths.<\/p>\n
President, Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Alhaji Aminu Goronyo said that the bill should explicitly support state-level consultation before individual council decisions were made. <\/p>\n
Goronyo was represented by his Special Adviser, Muhammad Alibaba.<\/p>\n
He said: “We are recommending the introduction of a cross-border mechanisation and system of improving programmes supported by the council in partnership with the local fabricators and private investors”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our Correspondent Agric and Food Security, Minister Abubakar Kyari, on Monday, assured farmers of credit facilities to boost agriculture production in the country. He gave the assurance at a one-day Public Hearing held in Abuja organised by the Senate Committee on Agriculture Production Services and Rural Development. Recall that the Public hearing was on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[411,5170,2435],"class_list":["post-8266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-economy","tag-fertilizer","tag-irrigation","tag-opportunities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8267,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8266\/revisions\/8267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}