President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to commission Integrated Farm Estate in Katsina, which was built by the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA).
The commissioning of the first NALDA Integrated Farm Estate by President Buhari is expected to take place on Monday next week in Daura, Katsina State.
NALDA was resuscitated last year June after President Buhari amended the Act establishing the agency through the National Assembly to optimally deliver on its mandate of developing the rural communities through agriculture.
Speaking at the launch of the National Young Farmers Scheme(NYFS), which is one of the programmes of NALDA, Buhari said agriculture remains the backbone of the Nigerian economy, being the largest contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
He said: “We will do more to expand, modernise and revolutionise our agriculture, which is our most important asset,” he was quoted to have said in a statement signed by his media aid, Femi Adesina.
“I have directed that all NALDA’s abandoned farm estates be retrieved to enable thousands of our young men and women to be engaged in farming.
“This Administration will be achieving agricultural mechanisation through this scheme and I am confident that Nigeria under my watch, we will achieve food security in producing most of what we eat.
“In good harvest years, we may even export our surpluses and earn foreign exchange.”
The President also noted that the resuscitation of NALDA would make Nigeria food sufficient and in a few years, the country would begin to earn more revenue from exports of agricultural commodities.
“By virtue of my passion and desire for agriculture and also as a farmer myself, I am directly supervising NALDA as an authority under the Presidency.
“I am asking the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and State Governments to give full cooperation to NALDA in its activities.”
The Executive Secretary of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne, said the Integrated Farm Estate project was initiated and completed within six months.
Ikonne had told newsmen in Katsina during his courtesy visit to the state governor that in the pilot phase of the programme, that the agency had selected 14 states where it would train 100 youths in three Local Government Areas each on various forms of agricultural production.
He noted that the pilot states were selected from the six geo-political zones of the country, as more states would be selected in subsequent phases of the programme to maximise its impact on the economy.
“The essence of the programme is to engage as many Nigerian youths as possible by giving them employment and empowering them with skills and tools to handle the business aspect of farming”.
“This will enable farmers to get value for their products and the global economic trend warrants that we call on everybody to go back to farm.
“The government of President Muhammadu Buhari has assured Nigerians that farming will be fully mechanised to make it more attractive and more profitable.
“And that is what NALDA is driving. In this project, we will engage institutions, corporate bodies, governments, and individuals to lease their land that is not in use so that we could put it to use in a way that will contribute to economic productivity and youth employment”, and Ikonne said.
The integrated farm estate is expected to have poultry pens, goat pens, rabbit pens, fish ponds, crop farming areas, processing and packaging plants, storage, clinics, residential area, school, training centres as well as an administrative facility.
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Buhari to commission NALDA’s first integrated farm estate in Katsina