The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Kyari Abubakar, has identified wheat as a game-changer to the crawling economic record of the country, adding that it targets over 2 million tonnes across 19 northern states.
Abubakar who was represented by his Senior Special Adviser, Adewoye Adeyemi, made this disclosure during an on-the-spot assessment of the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro-Pocket Programme in Dadin Kowa in Yamaltu Deba Local Government Area of Gombe State.
The minister disclosed that the vision would reduce importation of wheat and boost exportation, stressing that it would further strengthen the country’s currency.
Abubakar said, “We have no doubt that by next year (2025) we will have a bumper harvest. I think the programme is largely successful.
“The programme has been improved since last year and Mr President’s expectation has been met we can do more from 20, we can have 40, 60, 70, 80, workers working.
“We expect about 60 per cent yields, at over 2 million metric tonnes across the 19 northern states that are involved in this programme,” he added.
He continued saying that the focus would not be on wheat alone but to utilise the comparative advantage of regions, saying “We want to close the deficit gap to reduce importation and increase local consumption. So that the cost can go down and increase in local production at the same time strengthen our naira by the time we reduce importation our naira will be strengthened. We are not concentrating only on wheat, we have other crops we are concentrating on but you know this is wheat period.”
On timely distribution of inputs, Abubakar added, “We have learnt so much lessons in terms of logistics by looking for farmers to say put in your data and it caused a lot of delay and it won’t be repeated again. We will start early we are moving from dry season to wet season we want to have all year round farming so that we can reduce food crisis.”
The minister noted that efforts were on to ensure that the farmers are protected, “We have agreement with certain companies as off takers. The problem we have in Nigeria is value addition and we have put that into consideration. We won’t allow farmers to be cheated,” she added.
