…As 123,000 hectares of farmland expected to be cultivated in the first phase of programme
Hybrid Wheat seeds ordered by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have arrived at the Nigerian port in Lagos.
This is in line with President Bola Tinubu initiative to boost agriculture when declared a state of emergency on food security in the country .
Accordingly the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security outlined the procedures and processes for the dry season wheat farming. The Ministers of Agriculture and Food Security were at the venue inspecting the imported seeds.
The Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, CON, speaking to newsmen during the inspection said, “If you all recall the statement of food emergency declared by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, sometime in July. When he came into office, he kickstarted this process of the wheat dry season farming with the importation of 6,750 metric tonnes of wheat seeds. The ship docked on Saturday and we are here to inspect the offloading of the ship for onward delivery to our centers. We have four designated centers in the North (close to the wheat zones).”
Speaking further the Minister said, “this wouldn’t have been possible without the support from FMAN (Flour Milling Association of Nigeria). They facilitated the whole process from the import and the shipping and other logistics even up to our designated centers. They’ve been fantastic and everything is going on smoothly according to the plan. We are supposed to kickstart the dry season farming sometimes in the middle of November which is in 10 days’ time . So, we are happy that this is right on time.”
In his reaction to the arrival of the seeds, Honourable Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Senator (Dr) Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, CON, said the government has shown it can walk the talk considering that Food Security is the number one priority of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“For this programme, we’ve started from 70,000 hectares but right now we’ve gone to about 123,000 hectares of farmlands that will be cultivated for the wheat farming projects. The expectation is that we are going to double our yield in terms of the output from this particular effort because these are high yielding varieties that we’ve gotten,” Abdullahi said.
The Chairman of Flour Mills of Nigeria, FMN, Mr. John Coumantaros, who was also part of the inspection team said it is a critical initiative towards achieving food security for the Nation.
“The population is around 210 Million and still growing so it’s critically imperative just as the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has stated that we must create food security within the country. The primary basis for this is to double and triple the yields we are currently getting. First, it starts with seedling as the Honourable Minister has mentioned because that gives you a good hybrid of varieties and this continues to the extension farmers with the right processes.
The farmers must plant between November 15th and December 15th; otherwise, the season gets too long into the dry season.” He said.”
