Nigeria must stop rice import-Tijani

Nigeria’s Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Bukar Tijani

Nigeria must stop rice import-Tijani
Ben Adam Shemang, Abuja

Nigeria is making deliberate effort to ensure that it produces rice massively to ensure its over 140 million people are fed well and to ensure food security in the country.

The Nigeria’s Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Bukar Tijani has said in an interview with Voice of Nigeria.

“We are coming out with a deliberate Policy to ensure that the country is self- Sufficient in rice production”, he said.

Too much spent on import

The Minister said that “Nigeria spends over one trillion naira on importing goods like rice, meat, fish, sugar and other things the country can produce effectively”.

Alhaji Bakar said Stakeholders would look at value chain of their products and ensure that agriculture supplies the raw materials needed in the country.

He said that President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda is total revolution in agriculture and that market forces should drive what is produced in any part of the country, stressing that agriculture should be run like a business venture.

The Minister said government would increase the level of cassava production, a commodity Nigeria is number one world supplier and to ensure it is produced for ethanol like Brazil and China are doing.

Good business.

Although groundnuts, cotton, palm oil cocoa and other grains are being produced in the country, their export value is dwindling, a condition government wants to correct.

Nigeria is working too; to ensure dry season farming is encouraged through the use of dams in view of climate change that produces too much rain and flood that sweep away farm lands and crops.

Alhaji Bukar said that farming would be made attractive to the youths to see farming as good business.

Nigeria has 58 million youths, of this number, 33million are unemployed.

This is according to federal government statistics.

Iheanacho