The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono, disclosed while hosting participants of the Senior Executive Course No 43(2021) of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Plateau State that the Federal Government was to drive Nigeria’s agricultural mechanization programme with about 60,000 tractors.
According to Nanono, the programme would ensure a paradigm shift from subsistence practice to commercial agro-industrial farming for food production, procurement of agricultural processing plants, fertilizer production, among others.
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In a statement issued in Abuja by his ministry’s Chief Information Officer, Ezeaja Ikemefuna, the minister explained that mechanisation would enhance local technologies evolution with over 600 private sector driven service centres, tractors, farming implements, storage and IT facilities.
“This would address the challenge of feeding the nation’s growing population and achieving food sustainability, create jobs for teeming Nigerian youths and boost the economy,” Nanono said.
He also informed his guests that the ministry plans to increase agricultural extension workers to 75,000 in various value chains for efficient food production and self-sufficiency.
The leader of the delegation and Director of Studies, NIPSS, Olufunmilayo Para-Mallam, said in her remarks that the theme for the SEC 43, 2021, as approved by the President Muhammadu Buhari was ‘Getting things done: Strategies for policy and programme implementation’.
Para-mallam stated that the ministry was critical to sustainable development and diversification of the Nigerian economy.
