A total of N5, 567, 314, 541.76 has been approved by the
Federal Executive Council (FEC) for the third quarter soil
erosion control accelerated intervention projects for six
states.
According to FEC headed by President Muhammad, the
states include Kano, Sokoto, Ondo, Osun, Enugu and
Bayelsa.
The information was made known by the Special Adviser to
the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, at
the post-FEC briefing , along with the Minister of Agriculture
and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh and Minister of
State (Aviation), Heidi Sirika.
According to Sirika, the FEC has approved bilateral air
services agreement with Canada in furtherance of its efforts
to improve relations between both countries, including trade
and commerce.
“It would be a standard agreement to facilitate the
movement of people and business transactions,” he said
Also speaking, Ogbe, noted that FEC approved the
development of foundation seeds for maize, by the Institute
of Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU),
Zaria.
He said the research was at the cost of N165 million for 30
tons of foundation seeds multiplied by 265 tons of improved
seeds, which is to be given to seeds companies to multiply.
The minister said one of the problems facing maize
production in the country was lack of the right quality.
According to him, this is responsible for the yields per
hectare being among the lowest in the world
Ogbe said the council also discussed the disturbing trend of
smuggling, which is impacting negatively on the country.
“We have to deal with that because while we are making a
great deal of progress in our production of grains, smugglers
are trying to compromise the successes we have achieved.
“I can give you some figures. Between September 2015 and
now, rice importation through the ports dropped from
644,131 tons to 20,000 tons in September, which means that
by the end of this year, to the early part of next year, we can
literally say we are close to total self-sufficiency in rice.
“On the other hand, in Republic of Benin, rice importation
has increased to 1.33 million tons because they don’t eat
parboiled rice; they eat white rice. So, every grain of rice
landing there is heading for Nigeria through smuggling and
some of it also come in through Niger Republic.
“These are issues to deal with because we want local rice
production to meet our needs and we are creating jobs.
“There are at least 12.2 million farmers in the country and
they are enjoying life the way they haven’t before. So these
are the issues we raised today,” he said.
Ogbe added that the government would beef up its
onslaught on smugglers, as the country was currently losing
over N5 billion to the nefarious activities.
He said smugglers were responsible for the delay in setting
up of rice mills.
“They (millers) spend money to mill the rice and the
smugglers dump them at N12,500. The smugglers can dump
at N12,500 because they are subsidised from Thailand. They
are determined to see that we don’t succeed. We can’t do
that because we can’t subsidise to that level.We say if
everything goes well without the smugglers, our people
should be able to sell at N13, 500 per bag,” he stated.
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