By Our Reporter
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, has said that his ministry has signed an agreement with tractor manufacturer for the supply of 2,000 tractors annually in the next five years, to enhance food security across the country.
The minister said the agreement became inevitable because the country currently needs 72,000 tractors to engage in mechanised farming to curb the food crisis being experienced in the nation.
Kyari, gave the hint during the week at a sectoral debate organised by the House of Representatives in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
He said there were only about 5,000 tractors currently in working condition at farmland across the country.
In his presentation before the House plenary, Kyari said the rise in food crisis was due mainly to food smuggling, flooding , insecurity and last yearNaira redesign by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The minister explained that the Naira’s cash swap policy left small scale farmers without cash for cultivation in 2022/2023, farmlnds were destroyed by floods across the country within the same period and farm produce were washed away.
He said the interesting thing is that President Bola Tinubu recently gave his ministry a directive to release grains from the National Strategic Grain Reserve and to adopt another measures to address food insecurity, hence this agreement.
Kyari added that the government, in partnership with the World Food Programme, halted mass procurement of grains for stockpiling in order to stabilise food prices.
