The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) has trained and deployed 82, 547 extension workers from 2019 to date to promote local farming.
Extension in agriculture is a service that assists farmers through educational procedures in improving farming methods to increase production efficiency.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar, made the disclosure at an oversight meeting with Senate Committee on Agriculture in Abuja on Friday.
Abubakar said the training was designed to reduce the ratio of extension service agents to farmers in line with international best practices.
According to him,the ministry has engaged in land clearing and development of over 4000 hectares in collaboration with the state and local governments to reduce rural poverty.
He said the ministry was also engaging youths in production of commodities and to achieve accelerated sustainable development of the economy.
He said to support value addition, input delivery and generate employment opportunities, the ministry had constructed several agro-industrial estates,agro-processing centres,farm markets and integrated cooperative service centres.
According to him, over three million direct and indirect jobs had been created via the activities of the ministry.
On self -sufficiency in rice production, he said President Muhammadu Buhari approved an intervention fund for completion of 10 large scale rice mills with a combined minimum capacity of 320 metric tonnes per day in 10 states.
The minister listed the states to include Jigawa, Kano, Adamawa, Niger, Kaduna, Gombe, Ekiti, Ogun, Bayelsa and the FCT.
He added that the rice mills would make Nigeria close the 7 million metric tonnes shortfall in domestic rice demand.
He said the ministry successfully facilitated 134 million dollars from Africa Development Bank (AfDB) to scale up food production and ensure sufficiency in wheat production by 2032
He said the facility was expected to result in cultivation of 250,000 hectares by 250,000 farmers at one farmer per hectare, at an average of three metric tonnes per hactare.
According to the minister, the measure will also result in the production of 750,000 metric tonnes of wheat from Jigawa, Kebbi, Kano, Bauchi, Kastina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara, Gombe, Plateau, Borono, Yobe, Adamawa and Taraba.
He said the ministry had increased production of fish by 1,364,450 metric tonnes through artisanal, industrial and marine fishing of the water bodies in the country.
He said the achievements recorded in the sector were evidence of government’s huge investments in the sectors as shown in the consistent significant contributions to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
He also attributed improvement in the sector to the synergy amongst the public, private sectors and development partners.
He added that the partnership must be sustained to continuously grow agriculture, diversify the economy and empower Nigerians.
He listed inadequate budgetary provisions as one of the challenges in executing critical projects and programmes to stimulate national agricultural production.
He decried that less than two per cent of the national budget had been committed to agriculture as against 10 per cent agreed by Africa Heads of States at the Malabo Declaration, among other challenges.
On IGR, he said the ministry had a revenue target of N271 million , while N307 million has been realised as at July 2022.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Sen. Abdulahi Yahaya (PDP-Kebbi) said the success recorded in the release of funds to the ministry was occasioned by the timely passage of the budget by 9th National Assembly before end of every year.
This, he said was resulting in an improvement in the performance of MDAs.
He urged the ministry to ensure full utilisation of the N9 billion released but yet to be uncommitted and the N17 billion that would be released to further ensure execution of projects of the ministry.
Yahaya also told the ministry to make a honest projection on the likely impact of flood, insecurity to food production in the country and offer advice to government on how to mitigate it. (NAN)
