Voice Air Media, VAM News Update
As hunger bites harder in the land as a result of high inflation rate, the Federal Government has concluded plans to release at least 42,000 metric tonnes of assorted grains to Nigerians to feed themselves.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, announced the decision of the government at the maiden edition of ministerial press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, saying that the administration of President Bola Tinubu was concerned about the high food prices in the country.
The minister, who was flanked by his Information counterpart, Mohammed Idris, said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is deeply concerned about rising food prices and was determined to make essential food readily available to Nigerians at affordable prices.
The minister announced that modalities for the grains to be released to needy Nigerians from different locations in the country were being worked out with the Department of State Security Services and the National Emergency Management Agency so as to make the process seamless and successful.
Beyond distributing grains to Nigerians to stem the rising wave of hunger in the land, Kyari said that the ministry had also adopted various measures to produce more food so that the country would no longer experience food shortage and high prices.
Among the new strategies being adopted by the federal government is the plan to involve governors of the 36 states in identifying real farmers who would be benefitting directly from some interventions to enable them to produce more food.
The minister said the involvement of the governor was necessitated by the discovery of those he described as ‘political farmers’ in the farmers’ database being kept by the ministry, a development he said was unhelpful in the food production value chain.
Kyari said that in a bid to also made food readily available to Nigerians a total of 120,000 hectares of land is to be cultivated with wheat while 150,000 farmers are expected to cultivate rice in many parts of the country within the year.
The minister said that food security was partially challenged by many factors including flooding and insecurity while the population of Nigeria has also been rapidly.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, who coordinated the press briefing, explained that the forum was deliberately created to afford the ministers and the media the opportunity to interact so as to understand what the Tinubu administration was doing to actualise the Renewed Hope agenda.
He said the purpose of the briefing was to clearly explain to Nigerians the five pillars of the agenda being implemented by the ministry which are to restore trust, amplify policies and programmes, reorient national values, modernize technology and talent and to create an enabling environment for the media to operate.
“The Ministerial Press Briefing Series (MPBS) that we are kicking off today, are in line with our ‘Restore Trust’ and ‘Amplify Policies and Programmes’ pillars. This is a chance for you, the distinguished members of the press, to engage with senior officials of the Federal Government, on behalf of the good people of Nigeria.
“You will hear first-hand about what the Federal Government is doing, policies, programs, targets and objectives, and you will be able to ask questions and receive relevant clarifications. We have also made efforts to ensure that this Briefing Series receives the widest possible coverage, through traditional and digital platforms,” the minister explained.