We’ve Identified Solution To Food Shortage – FG

Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi

 LAGOS – The Federal Government has said that it has been able to identify the solution to food shortage in the country.

With food inflation at over 40 percent, the government had to reassure Nigerians of its efforts at tackling the problem.

Aliyu Abdullahi, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security disclosed this on Monday in an interview on Arise TV, stressing that the major cause of food shortage is traced to the type of seed planted by farmers and the government has been able to identify that.

Abdullahi said, “As part of the first thing that we understood is the fact that there’s a problem with the seed system and we’ve fixed that now.

“Right now all the people involved in the national seed council, Agricultural Research Institutes, Research Council of Nigeria are now working to ensure that the right seeds will continuously be made available to Nigerian farmers.

“Agricultural preparation is usually done using hoes and cutlasses, manually, which is why I said that what we have now as mechanisation is 0.67 horse power per hectare. Meanwhile, even in Africa the average is 1.7 horsepower per hectare. So how do you expect a farmer to be productive? I’m saying this because we understand that problem, the government has come up with a robust mechanisation programme, that is the first one.

“The second aspect is seed. If you don’t plant the right seed you won’t get good yield. Yes you’ve gone through your work in the farm but at the end of the day you end up with two tons per hectare but somebody who did the right thing, using the right seed, having the right knowledge and skills, applied chemicals, is getting five tones or six tons per hectare.

“We understand where these problems are and we’re frontally attacking them. Even when it comes to harvest some farmers will have large fields and by the time they start harvesting there’ll be issues. We’re addressing all these challenges to ensure food security.”

Speaking further, he said, “What we need to understand is, for example, the idea of food security is ensuring that food is available, not just available, but also accessible to the people because if there’s food in Nigeria and it’s not in my town, it’s not accessible to me.

“If I go to the market and I cannot buy it with the money that I have, then it’s not accessible to me. It’s not just to go and buy corn and come back, you should be able to buy nutritious food so that on a continuous basis you’re able to eat and have sufficient energy, have a clear mind etcetera. So, these are what we’re now looking at in more detail.

“The idea of increasing productivity of Nigerian farmers has to come from so many factors. They should have the right seed and I’ll tell you that as at the time we came on board we met a seed system that was almost on its knees.

“The first stage is that farmers need to have the right seed, the right seed that they’ll plant to have a higher yield per hectare. If farmers are getting two tons per hectare, will you compare them with those getting nine tons or 10 tons?

“There’re farmers who go to the field but are making low yields. You need to do everything to increase their yield. The first stage is the seed that they plant. Are they planting the right seeds?” Abdullahi queried.