How we can achieve needed change in agriculture, by Audu Ogbe

By Jimoh Babatunde

ILORIN—The Federal Government says to bring about the needed change in agriculture that there is need to focus energy more on developing and creating enabling environment for the rural areas to grow as the nature of the new growth in Nigeria is one that is inclusive and opens up the rural economy.
Speaking at the flag off of the second phase of the Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprise, AEHE, yesterday in Ilorin, the Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, said it would be unthinkable and counterproductive, to think of developing agriculture in Nigeria by continuing to distribute hoes, machetes, axes and ordinary and low yielding seeds to farmers.

“Capitalism puts wealth in the hands of the drivers but the time to democratise capitalism, especially in the Nigerian agricultural sector is now. This government is committed to achieving an all-inclusive growth,” he said.
While noting that agriculture has regrettably been seen to be synonymous with poverty, the minister of agriculture said no country can practise agriculture sustainably without agricultural mechanisation.

“Although over 50 million hectares of arable land are presently not in use, the 40 million hectares in use are poorly developed and not very tractorable.”

Ogbeh explained that the low level of mechanisation limits the ability of farmers to expand cultivated areas, perform timely farm operations and achieve economies of scale in increasing food production.

He added that Europe today is over-mechanised, USA is completely mechanised, but regretted that in African countries, including Nigeria, only five per cent of farm labour is done using tractor.

“Although Nigeria, for a very long time, has not conducted a valid inventory of our tractor density, this may be less than five tractors to 1,000 hectares.”

Audu Ogbeh noted that with the renewed commitment of the present administration to end unbridled importation of all kinds of food items and make the country self sufficient in food will deepen and widen the Private Sector-driven Agricultural Mechanisation Framework, PSDAMF, strategies in partnership with local fabricators and manufacturer representatives.

“This flag-off serves as the commencement of the Buhari Administration’s vision to aggressively commercialise and mechanise Nigeria’s agriculture by introducing about 2,000 units of tractors and various kinds of harvesting and processing equipment to mechanise our farming annually, while also building Nigerian local content and capacity to sustain and advance mechanisation to suit best practices worldwide.”


http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/01/how-we-can-achieve-needed-change-in-agriculture-by-audu-ogbe/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomato disease outbreak: Institute appeals for research funding

The National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, has appealed for funding to carry out research and create awareness on the tuta absoluta pest on tomatoes. The Institute’s Head of Vegetable Programme, Dr Olagorite Adetula, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Friday that there was an urgent need to tackle the problem to save the economy. Adetula said the institute needed money to do surveillance survey of the pest/damage, ascertain the impact of the damage and proffer solution for eradicating the pest. She appealed to the Federal Government to help the institute get pheromones to lure and trap the pests and distribute to farmers. ``Spraying insecticides is not the best, the pest has high production rate, some of them can escape while spraying it and they will be resistant to the insecticide thereby causing us more cost. ``The pheromones can be used for six to eight weeks before changing it, it is very effective, the pest has short life cycle, wit...
Read more

10,000 women farmers to be engaged in ECOWAS rice project – official

Image
 Mr Richard Olafare, the President, Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (SEEDAN) says 10,000 women will be engaged in the recently inaugurated Rice Seed Up-Scaling Project. This is contained in a presentation on the project made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday. Olafare said 8,000 youths would also be engaged in the scaling project. According to him, the number of women and youths represented 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively of the 20,000 farmers that will participate in the project. NAN reports that the project is an initiative of the West Africa Seed Programme (WASP) in support of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive Programme that was inaugurated in 2014. Among other objectives, it is targeting the production of 60,000 metric tonnes of paddy rice for Nigeria by December 2017, using 1,200 certified seeds. The project is being implemented by SEEDAN in collaboration with the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultura...
Read more

Monsanto Nigeria Launches 3 Conventional Maize Hybrids

Maize farmers across Nigeria now have 3 high yielding conventional maize hybrids to choose from the DEKALB ® brand as Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Limited launches 3 conventional maize hybrids. The launch held in Abuja on Tuesday May 17 2016 had in attendance farmers, development partners, government regulatory bodies and other stakeholders from both the private and public sectors of the economy. The launch of these hybrid seeds follows their registration by the National Committee on Naming, Registration and Release of Crop Varieties, Livestock Breeds and Fisheries in February 2016. The white maize hybrid, DK234 alongside the 2 yellow maize hybrids, DK920 and DK818 obtained registration approval for use in Nigeria after testing across various agro ecological zones on multi-location farms. The white maize hybrid DK234 with yield potential of 13 tonnes per hectare is well adapted for the Southern and Northern Guinea Savanna ecologies and shows tolerance to Maize Streak Virus, ...
Read more