The Federal Government says that it has worked out a contingency plan to avert food shortage in the country.
This was due to the massive floods that wreaked havoc on farms and the loss of agricultural produce worth billions of naira across the country.
According to the government, the plan is to encourage farmers to produce some crops twice during dry-season farming.
Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Mohammed Abubakar revealed the contingency plan after a FEC meeting in Abuja on Wednesday.
He spoke with reporters in company of Sports and Youth Development Minister Sunday Dare; Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Olorunnimbe Mamora, and Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity (Office of the Vice-President) Laolu Akande.
Abubakar said:
“It is telling us that we have lost some farmlands. I can give you one and that is Olam, a private organisation, whose rice farm was totally submerged about 4000 hectares.
“But what are we going to do, like I said, it’s to use dry season farming to compensate for this loss. In fact, we are planning to even produce twice during this dry season farming for some of the crops.
“We have got funding from the African Development Bank and we have some money on our own. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) also just donated or gave us grant of $5 million.
“In areas of conflict, we are recruiting additional rangers. We already have Agro Rangers that provide some measure of security on farmlands. We are recruiting more to do that.
“Also, we are intensifying farming in areas that have no conflict to make up for those areas to we are getting little or no access.
“The President has specifically directed that we do everything humanly possible to make sure there is no food shortage in the country and I can tell you, there will not be any food shortage.”
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