FG restates commitment to enhance food security through mechanisation
The federal government has reiterated its commitment to improve food security through mechanisation.
The minister of agriculture and food security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, stated this on Wednesday in Abuja during a technical meeting with John Deere Group on agricultural mechanisation.
He expressed optimism that the Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU), signed in November 2023 to provide 2,000 tractors in 2024 for farmers was still achievable.
The federal government, in November 2023, signed a MoU with John Deere, Asia (Singapore) Ltd. on agricultural mechanisation to enhance food security.
Mr Kyari said that tractors would be made available to both small and large scale farmers to boost farming and achieve food security in Nigeria.
He said the tractors would also be made available to farmers at affordable cost.
“Cooperatives will be included so that small farmers can have access to the tractors.
“We are also going to collaborate with large-scale farmers because they also contribute to food security.
”So it is also important we engage with both the smallholder and large scale farmers.
”We are under-tractorised right now as a country and every journey begins with a step.
”John Deere is one of the largest agricultural equipment manufacturers in the world,” he said.
Also, the minister of state for agriculture, Aliyu Abdullahi, expressed optimism that the tractors, once made available, would boost farming activities.
He said that the tractors would achieve its aim of ensuring food security.
Earlier, the managing director, John Deere Ltd, Stephan Gouws, said the programme for delivering the tractors included capacity building and technology transfer among others.
Mr Gouws said that the company was not out to sell tractors and leave Nigeria as others did in the past.
”The major thing we want to do is to increase the profitability of the farmers.
”It can be the smallholder farmer or large holder farmer, the goal of all these is to increase profitability.
”We want to build the community, and we have this programme running elsewhere in Africa.
”It is the largest programme we are unlocking and we are really excited,” he said.
(NAN)
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