THE Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the sum of N5,567, 314,541.76 as third quarter soil control acceleration for six states the different geopolitical places in the country.
Special Adviser to the President on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents on the outcome of the FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Wednesday.
The benefitting states he said include Kano, Sokoto, Ondo, Osun, Enugu and Bayelsa States.
Also speaking at the briefing, Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, disclosed that FEC also approved bilateral air services agreement between Nigeria and Canada.
He said this was as part of government’s effort to connect every Nigerian engaged in trade and commerce to business.
According to him, this will open businesses, connect Culture trade and Commerce between Canada and Nigeria.
Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe, spoke on the effort to stamp out smuggling of agriculture products, regretting that continued smuggling of foreign produced rice was discouraging local millers from producing more.
He pointed out that a concerned President Buhari had spoken about it and warned of stern action against smugglers in his budget address to the National Assembly.
He explained: “In Mr President’s speech to the National Assembly yesterday, he gave a very strong warning about smugglers who bring in unauthorized commodities through the unauthorized borders into the country.
“We have to deal with that because, while we are making a great deal of progress in our grains productions, smugglers are busy compromising the success we have achieved.
“Between September 2015 and now, rice importation through the ports has dropped from 644,131, tonnes to 20,000 tonnes in September, this year. This means that by the early part of next year, we can literally say, that we are close to total self-sufficiency in rice.
“On the other hand, to the west of Nigeria, rice importation has increased to 1.33million tones in the Republic of Benin. They don’t eat parboiled rice but the white rice. So, every grain of rice landing there is heading for Nigeria through illegal smuggling.
“Some of it also comes in through the Niger Republic. These are issues we have to deal with because we are creating jobs through our local rice production. There are 12.2 million rice farmers in the country now.”
On specific measures to tackle smuggling, he points out that a MoU exists between Nigeria and Republic of Benin, entered into during the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration which said prescribed that “we would work together not to compromise each other’s interest.”
He added: “That MoU has not been implemented fully. So, we are going to take it up. Already, the Vice President has been working with the committee which he heads and he is working with the Minister of Finance, Comptroller General of Customs and also the Ministry of Agric. We will brief you as we progress.”
The minister regretted the role of middlemen in the high cost of rice in the country but disputed that a 50kg bag still sells for as much as N20,000 in the open market.
He said even though rice millers sell a 50kg bag of rice for N15,000 in their factories, middlemen ensured it got to the final consumers at much higher cost or hoard the commodity.
He said: “I was in the largest mill in the country in Kano two days ago, they were selling rice for N15,000 for 50kg.
“You know your country very well, there are middlemen who do all kinds of things and I told the millers to increase the number of their distributors because there is no point saying it is N15,000 in their factory when out there, somebody is hoarding.
“The same thing happened to maize. Some people fill their warehouses with maize and shut the place so that the prices were so high that poultry farmers could not get access to maize in the market.
“So, people went to import, crash the prices and they started complaining. There is nowhere rice is selling for N20,000.”
Ogbe said Council also gave approval for the development of foundation seeds for maize to the Institute of Agricultural Research, ABU Zaria.
According to him, one of the challenges was that “we do not have the right variety of seeds. So, the yield per hectare is very poor. We have the lowest in the world.
“So, that is research is going on and the funds is N155 Million for 30 tonnes of foundation to multiply to 230 tons of improved seeds which will be given to seed companies to multiply.”
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