The federal government continues to work on its plan to boost food production in 2024. The latest effort by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security is the launching of irrigation project to achieve that objective. The irrigation production is expected to assist between 200,000 and 250,000 farmers. And from their efforts the federal government projects that it will reap over one million and two hundred and fifty tonnes of wheat. Senator Abubakar Kyari, minister in charge of the ministry said in Gashua, Yobe State, while unveiling the irrigation scheme, that it was a response to the declaration of a state of emergency on food security by President Bola Tinubu.
The plan was espoused in the president’s new year address, which shows that there are actions to back up policy objectives on food production. The minister said that dry season farming will take off in Kumadugu/Yobe and WachakalRiver Basins, including the Nguru wetlands. There, the subsidised farm inputs that the president talked about in his address were distributed to farmers. According to the minister, each of the benefitting farmers ‘will receive seven bags of NPK and liquid fertilisers, two bags of improved wheat seeds and litres of pesticide, depending on the size of the arable farm to be irrigated to produce wheat.’ In response to fears of proper supervision to ensure that cases of sabotage are reduced, and the target met, the minster said, “A monitoring implementation team has been set up in each of the wheat-producing states”. The teams are expected to undertake evaluation of land preparation and care up to harvest time.
It is expected that the team will also note the possibility of having farmers like Isa Mai Unguwa, a rice farmer who said he had never benefitted from federal or state government subsidised farm inputs until the present dispensation. Yet, he produces about 3,000 bags of rice annually.
