The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Sabo Nanono on Wednesday, said that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari had outperformed any other government in the past.
Nanono disclosed this at a National Agriculture Retreat with the theme ‘Harnessing our Next Level in Agricultural Development’ organized by Northern Nigeria Agricultural Summit.
The Minister who was represented by the Director Federal Department of Agriculture Engr Frank Kudla said the present administration had also incorporated its agricultural policy, Green Alternative to the Economic Recovery Growth Plan.
“This administration has done tremendously well in the development of agriculture than any previous administration through the implementation of the agricultural promotion policy green alternative.
“The Green Alternative has successfully been incorporated in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan 2017-2020, this has ensured focus, clarity and impact in the activities in the agricultural sector’s the Minister said.
Among the areas of focus, the Minister said the serious attention is being focused on comprehensive livestock development, input access, expanded access to finance, value addition and processing support, agricultural education, research and innovation, storage systems, agricultural extension support, nutrition.
Nanono noted that the fundamental challenge that Nigeria face today was not how to produce more, but how to produce better, “in this context, I want to say that innovation in agriculture is the priority to tackling food security in Nigeria”, he added.
He said presently, the administration had recorded significant achievement in the areas of “producing of agriculture equipment, machineries and materials to farmers at subsidized rate, strategic grain reserve program completed, concession of silos constructed by the government, school feeding program, input support to farmers through the Agriculture Equipment Hiring Enterprise, development of grazing reserves, recapitalization of Bank of Agriculture”.
While speaking with Nigerian Tribune, the Convener of the Retreat, Victor Toluhi, said “the idea of this summit is to complement on what this government has been doing on agriculture, it is to create awareness on agricultural activities in northern Nigeria because agriculture is source of our main revenue in the North, we don’t have oil”.
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