Commissioners of Agriculture from 10 states of the Hydro-Electric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (N-HYPPADEC) on Tuesday converged in Minna to chart ways forward to end the lingering food scarcity and hunger in the country.
The meeting was conveyed by the National Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (N-HYPPADEC) as a follow up to a study trip to Thailand on the global best practices on food production.
The Managing Director of the National Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission, Abubakar Sadiq Yelwa, said the essence of the meeting was to actualise the N-HYPPADEC's ambition at ensuring that the provision of food in HYPPADEC producing states is encouraged and to enhance the efforts of state governments.
Yelwa said the meeting was a response to calls by the Federal Government of Nigeria in ensuring food security in the country.
"That is why we invited the Commissioners of Agriculture from the 10 HYPPADEC states to align their programmes with us on food production to see how those programmes can be encouraged, supported and sustained.
"Last year, we sponsored a trip to Thailand where we visited a small machinery equipment and part of this meeting is to discuss the outcomes of that trip to see what can be done to influence the utilization of such facilities.
"From the way things are going in Nigeria, it has become a reality that agriculture is the only saving grace for Nigeria. Therefore, the 10 HYPPADEC states have all it takes to be the leading food producers in Africa. We are blessed with both River Niger and River Benue, as well as River Kaduna; we are blessed with abundant landmass that is very suitable for agricultural production, we are blessed with enough human resources that can participate fully in the agricultural revolution of Nigeria and we will not allow ourselves to take the back seat," he said.
The Managing Director observed that the partnership with states would focus on food production, food processing as well as animal production.
According to him, "each of these states has its programmes in agriculture and we are not going to replace those programmes but rather support them to see the light of the day. We believe that those programmes each of these states wants to embark upon are programmes that they have done enough study on and they are in the best interest of their states. We have earlier met with state governors to bring back the agricultural extension programmes because we have realised that our farmers need to be guided on what to produce and how to produce it. And once they have that guidance, you will see that the output will improve. Where a hectare is giving you 20 bags, with guidance, it will give you 70 bags. Those are the kinds of things we want to go into."
Also speaking, the Benue State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Prof. Moses Ogbaje, a professor of crop production, said state governments were ready to come up with workable methods that would improve agricultural production and put an end to food scarcity in a short time.
"To achieve this, we have crops that yield at early periods. They don't grow long and they have short maturing period. We are going to introduce them to our farmers. We are going to introduce short duration varieties; we are going to encourage production of more vegetables to make sure we cushion the effects of hunger on the land. I must say that if the hunger is like this now, it would be more severe around June and July and that is why we are conveying this meeting now."
Prof. Ogbaje called on Nigerians to be patriotic in curbing the lingering hunger and rising cost of living, calling on marketers to desist from unnecessary increase of commodities to avoid causing fellow citizens hardship and hunger.
"In Thailand, we saw that people have now moved to using small farming equipment that even two to three people can buy and even a woman can operate them. Those are the kinds of things we are going for. The things that don't require rigorous technical expertise to operate instead of tractors that are very costly, and which people cannot afford," he said.
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On his part, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Kebbi State, Shehu Mu'azu, said governments need to do everything possible to reduce the cost of production to improve agricultural production and achieve good security in the country.
"Introducing machineries would reduce the cost of production. HYPPADEC has already started procuring fertilisers and distributing to our communities. These are efforts geared towards cutting down the cost of production. Reducing the cost of production is very important because cost of production determines the market price of every produce.
"We are here in furtherance to the directive of Mr. President that state governments should come up with workable policies as far as food production is concerned. These 10 HYPPADEC states is the food belt of Nigeria and there is no better time than now to prove that," he explained.
