President Bola Tinubu is aggressively increasing agricultural production in Nigeria through strategic investment in production and post-production programs that have yielded positive results, according to award-winning Soil Scientist, Kingsley Uzoma, whose trailblazing experience and impact resonate across disciplines and borders (Nigeria, Belgium, UK, Japan and Canada).
Speaking during a monitored television program on Wednesday in Abuja, Dr Uzoma, who is also the Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Agribusiness and Productivity Enhancement, stated that the government, under President Tinubu, has implemented several initiatives to support farmers and enhance food security since its inception in 2023.
According to him, “Through the African Food Security Emergency Support program, over 500,000 farmers benefited from subsidised fertiliser and seed inputs, leading to a significant increase in productivity. Additionally, the Irrigate Nigeria project aims to provide irrigation to 5 million hectares of land across the country, reducing dependence on rainfall and mitigating the impact of climate change.”
Continuing, he assured that “at the end of the day for the first time in the history of this nation there will be a government-led private sector-driven structured organisation in each of the 774 LGAs in the country that will benefit from a low interest facility that will further boost actual productivity”.
He further stated that the Tinubu administration believes that within the first ten years of the Green Imperative Project being relaunched and given more impetus by the administration will lead to a quantum leap in agricultural productivity in terms of stabilisation of food security and increased export, leading to further diversification of the economy.
On expected increases in production output, he touted the falling prices of some agricultural products such as rice, maize and ginger as evidence of the improvements recorded so far and assured that in the coming months the benefits will further trickle down to kitchen tables. He further highlighted the support the government is giving to farmers by supplying equipment and subsidising farm inputs.
“We increased the wheat production in this country by more than 10-fold and to the extent that we are now lobbying flour mills of Nigeria to buy more from our farmers”.
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