The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, blamed the lingering food scarcity across the country on unabated smuggling of food items across borders and the Naira redesign policy, which left smallholder farmers without cash to cultivate their farms between 2022 and 2023.

Senator Kyari who made the disclosure while addressing members of the House of Representatives during the third Sectoral Debate on ‘Agriculture and Food Security’, however, confirmed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has given the Ministry a matching order to do everything humanly possible to address the rising food insecurity in the country, including the release of grains from the National Strategic Grain Reserve.

According to him, as a result of the non-availability of cash, preparation for the 2023 farming season was inadequate to produce sufficient food crops to feed over 200 million Nigerian Citizens.

He noted that Nigeria was in the process of producing one million tonnes of rice within the next three months following dry season inputs to farmers under the National Agricultural Growth Scheme to guarantee food security in the country.
He however lamented that there are about 5,000 tractor working across the country when the country ought to have 72,000 functional tractors to meet the growing need of Nigerians.

In the bid to bridge the gap, Senator Kyari disclosed that the Ministry has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a manufacturer to supply 2,000 tractors annually for the next five years.

The Minister also emphasized the need for mechanization of the agricultural value chain as a long term measure for food security.

According to him, “We have seen the smuggling of foodstuffs to other neighbouring countries. This has affected the availability of food items in the country,” .

Also speaking at the debate, the Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service, Mr. Adewale Adeniyi, also said that the Service arrested about 120 trucks smuggling food items from Nigeria to other countries through the porous borders.

He also disclosed that the Service has commenced the sale of seized food items to vulnerable Nigerians to address hunger across the country.

According to him, President Bola Tinubu has directed that food items produced in Nigeria and seized at the Nigerian land borders, be sold directly to vulnerable Nigerians to ease the challenge of hunger in the country.

“Mr. President has directed that we sell directly to needy Nigerians food items produced locally but which were seized. This is one of the ways to address hunger and food scarcity we are facing. We have started this in Lagos.

“Also, the President has also directed that imported food items seized by the Nigeria Customs Service should be sold back to the local markets for resale to Nigerians,”. (PRNigeria)