President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday charged the Agriculture Transformation Implementation Council to provide plans to address the impact of flood on agriculture production in the country.
Speaking at the maiden meeting of the Council which he preside over at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, President Jonathan said that the unfortunate situation will have adverse effects on agricultural production in the affected communities, hence the need to put in place post flood solutions to address the impacts.
He said, “It is noteworthy that this inaugural meeting is coming up at a time when many parts of our country, including farmlands are being ravaged by unprecedented flooding.
“There is no doubt that this unfortunate situation will have adverse effects on agricultural production in the affected communities. I charge members of this council to make planning for the post impact implication of the ongoing flooding on agricultural production.”
The President, who raised concern over food security, noted that development of the agricultural sector remained key in the diversification of the economy.
He revealed that only 40 per cent of the country’s 84 million hectares of arable land is currently utilized.
He therefore assured that his administration was determined to turn these potentials into visible gains for the nation.
To actualize this, he said government was treating agriculture as a business, not just as a development programme.
He noted that government was focus on the development of agriculture value chains for all the major commodities ranging from rice to cassava, sorghum, cotton, oil palm, maize, soya beans, beef and dairy and other agriculture products.
The President also decried the huge sum used in importation of rice which is put at N1 billion daily, a situation he said was no longer acceptable.
He said the trend must come to an end by 2015 when the country is expected to be self-sufficient in rice.
The President also revealed that in the last 12 months, 13 new private sector rice mills had come up with a total capacity of 240,000 metric tonnes.
He therefore tasked the council to focus on irrigation, construction of rural roads, and provision of power to our stable processing zones and improvement of our researches.
The council, he noted “must strengthen farmers’ associations. We must also expand access to financing for farmers, agro dealers and processors.”
Already, the President said the private sector was showing capacities to produce international quality grade rice locally.
As according to him, “from Ebonyi rice in Ebonyi state, to Kano, Benue, rice of international quality are being produced. The demand for locally produced and milled rice is rising. Dominion Farms has started operation in Taraba State investing $40 million in local production of rice.
“In the past five months since the programme started, am told that over 800,000 farmers have received seeds and fertilizers. Government will further deepen this programme and provide even more mobile phones to farmers in the 2013 farming season.
“I urge the state governors to work closely with the Federal Government on this programme. In our drive to modernize agriculture, this administration is committed to ensuring that farmers use increased high quality seeds.”
Briefing journalists at the end of the meeting, Minister of Agriculture, Akinwunmi Adesina said the country’s projection of additional domestic supply had hit 1.8 million metric tonnes of food. While the plan according to him is to add 2million metric tonnes in 2012.
“We are well ahead of schedule on all projection for food supply,” he said.
He also said the country had mobilized a lot of maze varieties for farmers.
“In this regards, varieties that will mature set on 60 days are to be deployed. This will do 4500 hectares of land.”
He also noted that rice farmers will also be assisted with flood tolerance varieties.