The Federal Government is set to reverse the dependence on food imports and has projected the addition of 50 million tons of food to the nation’s food supply system between now and 2015.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, disclosed this in an interview with reporters.
According to Adesina, the country's food import bill between 2007 and 2010 peaked at N98 trillion or $628 billion dollars.
?He said that during the period N635 billion was spent to import wheat, N365 billion on rice, N217 billion on sugar and N97 billion on fish.
He said that to kick-start the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), the ministry was focusing on five crops –cassava, rice, cocoa, sorghum and cotton.
The minister? said that the transformation of the sector would strengthen the government’s food security programme, improve the living conditions of farmers and generate more employment.
He said that the government had expanded the processing capacity of rice mills in Ebonyi, Niger and Kebbi states, by accelerating their completion to go into full production by February of 2012.
The mills have a total processing capacity of 90,000 tons of rice.
Adesina said that by April 2012, 14 rice mills with a total capacity of 440,000 tonnes would come on stream under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
He said that the PPP arrangement had become necessary for all stakeholders to enable the agriculture sector to regain its lost glory.
“If you look at the rest of the countries of the world, the private sector had always been in the driving seat in agriculture development.
“All the government does is to facilitate; create the enabling environment where banks will support those private sector people that are in agriculture and where markets will be open and value added processes will be put in place.”
Adesina said that to feed the mills and ensure constant paddy production, the government was targeting 450,000 rice farmers in 2012 and would provide them with all the needed inputs and irrigation facilities for all-season rice farming.
He also disclosed that in Anambra State, the ministry was reviving the moribund 40,000-tonne Omo rice mills with 5,000 hectares of irrigated land and a community of farmers who grow rice.
He said that for the mill to become functional, the state Ministry of Agriculture was collaborating with that of works and power on road construction and the installation of a 33kva line directly to the mill as well as to serve the irrigation sites.
The government, he said, had put in place various measures to encourage domestic production and import substitution, to ensure that the local market did not suffer, as well as allow for effective competition and self-sufficiency.
Some of the measures included raising the levy on brown rice from the current five per cent to 30 per cent while that of polished rice rose to 50 per cent.
By December 2012, the tariff on rice would be raised to 100 per cent, he said.
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