The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, yesterday said the federal government would distribute 42,000 metric tonnes of grains free of charge to Nigerians as approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

He stated this at a ministerial press briefing in Abuja.

He said officials of his ministry had met with the National Emergency Agency (NEMA) and the Department of State Services (DSS) on the modalities for the distribution, in order to ensure that the grains reach the targeted citizens.

The minister said the food items would be released from the 53,000 metric tons in the strategic reserve.

He said food security was partially challenged by some factors, including flooding and insecurity.

He noted that the government was trying to crash prices and make food available to the citizens.

He said the government would enhance its ability to produce three million tons of rice during the dry season.

He also said the government had a target to produce about 2.5 to 3 million tons during the current dry season farming.

Kyari said the government had met with rice millers and other commodity producers as some of them had huge silos in their factories where food was stored.

He stated: “So we did some background checks of what is available. That is not to say that the farmers are going to produce 60,000 tons, no. They have them in storage; we are asking them to hand it over for the government to take them off so that it can be given out to the population. We’re still working out the modality of how it is going to be. As soon as we conclude on this, we’ll roll out the programme.”

The minister further said: “This 42,000MT is going to the needy free of charge. It will be directly to the needy at no cost.

Kyari also said the federal government plans to involve state governors in identifying real farmers who would benefit from interventions to enable them to produce more food.

He described the discovery of “political farmers” in the farmers’ database kept by the ministry as unhelpful in the food production value chain.

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said the briefing was to explain to Nigerians, the five pillars of the administration’s renewed hope agenda which are to restore trust, amplify policies and programmes, reorient national values, modernize technology and talents and to create an enabling environment for the media to operate.