The Minister also told the Senate panel that the Ministry has implemented some programmes that relates to youth’s involvement in agriculture and women in agric business development.
According to the Minister, there was conscious effort by the Ministry to reduce the ratio of extension services agent to farmers in line with international best practices for increased production of agricultural commodities Nigeria.
He.further disclosed that about 4000 hectares of land was cleared in collaboration with with the state and local governments to reduce rural poverty and increase production of commodities to achieve accelerated sustainable development of the economy.
Speaking on effort of the Ministry with regards to food security, he said: . “President Muhammadu Buhari has approved an intervention fund for completion of 10 large scale rice mills with a combined minimum capacity of 320 Metric Tonnes per day in 10 states.”
The Minister listed the states to include Jigawa, Kano, Adamawa, Niger, Kaduna, Gombe, Ekiti, Ogun, Bayelsa, and the FCT, adding that the rice mills would make Nigeria close the 7 million Metric Tonnes shortfall in domestic rice demand.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Sen.Abdulahi Yahaya said the success recorded in the release of funds to the ministry was occasioned by the timely passage of the budget by 9th National Assembly before end of every year.
This, he said was resulting in an improvement in the performance of MDAs.
He urged the ministry to ensure full utilisation of the N9 billion released but yet to be uncommitted and the N17 billion that would be released to further ensure execution of projects of the ministry.
Yahaya also told the ministry to make a honest projection on the likely impact of flood, insecurity to food production in the country,and offer advice to government on how to mitigate it.
Yahaya advised the ministry to come up with a comprehensive program on how best to tackle flood, saying that, National Assembly was committed to support the ministry , if it decides to present a supplementary budget.
