FG restates commitment to improvement of agricultural incentives

The Federal Government has restated its commitment to the provision of incentives to increase the output and quality of agricultural commodities to meet and surpass national requirements.

Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Mohammed Bello Umar, stated this yesterday during the opening of the five-day 43rd National Council on Agriculture meeting in Umuahia, Abia State, with the theme “Consolidating the strategies of the agricultural promotion policy for economic diversification and growth.”

Umar said that as a core step to the provision of these obligatory incentives, his ministry has strengthened the growth enhancement support scheme by validating farmers’ biometrics registration using tablets for redemption, clustering farmers into commodity chains, classifying farm sizes for production scale determination and providing minimum input package to farmers.

The Permanent Secretary, who solicited the commitment and co-operation of states to agribusiness promotion, sustainable livelihood and food security in the country, urged them to give priority to crops with export potentials to earn foreign exchange and commodities that enhance food security attainment.

He said that he was especially impressed by the commitment of the delegates to exchange of ideas on agricultural development process in the country.

The task before the forum/meeting delegates from the states and Abuja, he stated, “is to assess the effect of extant policies, fine-tune the existing strategies and shape initiatives for the attainment of food security in the country.”

The host Abia State Agriculture Commissioner, Chinedum Elechi, who stated that the participants comprised Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the counterparts in the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), including heads of all relevant Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), said the meeting was to formulate and implement sustainable agricultural policies and programmes that will contribute in providing solid economic base for the country.

According to him, “over the years, government has rolled out initiatives and programmes aimed at transforming the nation’s agriculture from subsistence to commercial status and suggested that the outcome of these programmes should be collated and analysed to further grow the economy and create more jobs.

He, however, said that the “dwindling petroleum oil prices, displacement of farming populations as a result of the activities of insurgents, Boko Haram and Niger Delta militants, farmers-pastoralists conflicts and so on had further orchestrated the economic downturns being experienced in the country.”