The federal government has said that it was set to increase rice production within the next two years and that by 2015, the country would be self sufficient in rice production.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, who disclosed this recently to newsmen in Abuja, said government had concluded plans to forward a bill on rice production to the National Assembly.
According to him: “To ensure food security and reduce the amount Nigerians spend on the purchase of food, there is need to put in place necessary framework for its achievement.”
He lamented that the average Nigerian household spends about 70 to 80 per cent of their income on food.
The minister lamented that Nigerian farmers lacked access to basic infrastructural facilities, adding that he was pushing for cassava green revolution in all parts of the country.
He mentioned that cocoa production increased from 170,000mt tones in 1999 to 380,000mt in 2009, nonetheless, its production was confronted with major challenges.
Listing the high cost of import, lack of access to improved varieties, lack of adequate information and the high cost of import for cocoa processing machinery as challenges, the minister assured that these challenges would soon be addressed as the federal government was going to work closely with the States to improve access to agricultural inputs.
He said: “United States has 200,000 farmers and they are the largest producers of food in the world, the largest exporter of food in the world and the largest donor of food aid in the world, whereas Nigeria has not less than 14.5 million farmers, majority of them cannot feed themselves not to talk of feeding the whole country.
“I will not be a minister of agriculture without food, as a minister there is nothing honourable about being in charge of poor people, that is not my job, my job is to increase food production and raise the income of farmers because Nigeria will not be a museum of poverty.”