The Minister of Agriculture Dr. Mohammad Abubakar, has disclosed that the federal government is planning to deploy forest rangers across the country in order to protect farmlands and ensure food security within the country.
The Minister made this disclosure on Tuesday during a conference where he discussed the impact of the flooding on Nigeria’s food security.
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According to the Minister, the government has also restocked the Strategic National Food Reserve with 200,000MT of commodities.
He noted that the deployment of agro-rangers to protect Nigeria’s food production from insecurity was part of ongoing activities by the ministry to increase food production in the country.
Abubakar said, “the partnership between the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Interior is to improve security on farms through the deployment of agro-rangers across the country.”
He added that the federal government had also restocked the Strategic Food Reserve with 200,000MT (metric tonnes) of assorted food, adding that they are also constructing and rehabilitating mini-earth dams and water, harvesting structures to store excess rainwater for dry season farming and fisheries in the front-line states.
“This will increase water availability for domestic and agricultural use. It will equally reduce the negative impact of climate change, mitigate farmer-harder conflict and increase food production in the country.
“Also the government is training pastoralists within grazing reserves to adopt good animal husbandry practices for increased production and reduction in crop farmer and herder conflicts. there has been an approval of five years tax break as an incentive to encourage private investments in the agricultural sector and increased food production, processing, and marketing,” he said.
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To tackle food prices and inflation, he added that the FG is looking at other areas where we can import the things that we need.
“A country, no matter how agriculture sufficient it is, will still import. Even America, which is the giant of agriculture, still imports certain things,” he added.
