Babatunde Fashola, minister of works and housing, says some
countries asked Nigeria to supply them food during the COVID-19 lockdown
measures.
Speaking during an Instagram live chat with City People
Magazine on Saturday, Fashola said President Muhammadu Buhari told the
countries to wait because Nigerians must be well-fed first.
He said the countries, which he did not mention, made the
requests because of the success of the agriculture programme of the federal
government.
“Agriculture is another critical part of the Economic
Sustainability Plan. We want to increase the cultivatable lands in the
country,” Fashola said.
“We are currently cultivating just about one-third and I
stand to be corrected on that figure. The minister of agriculture knows the
numbers than I do. But in his presentation, as I recollect it, we are not
cultivating enough lands. We want to double cultivation, increase food output,
not just for local use but for export.
“I must say to Nigerians that because of the success of the
agriculture programme which is still evolving, during this COVID exercise, many
countries were writing to us from near and far, asking us to please supply them
food. This is not in the public space but President Buhari’s priority was, tell
them to wait, we must feed our people first before we send out food, we don’t
know when this is going to end.
“So, we want to see more value-added in the sector in terms
of processing and cultivation. We are losing an unsatisfactory quantity of our
agro produce to many factors: transport, cooling, heating and so on. These are
some of the components that the Ministry of Agriculture will share in the next
few months about how to ensure that we preserve many more of what we produce
and lose less.”
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
So, it is an achievement ni? O ti e baje
ReplyDelete