The Federal Government has disclosed its plan to make food available to Nigerians in the coming year.
The FG, through the Ministry of Agriculture, said that it is working towards producing around 31 million metric tonnes of grains in 2024.
It said this was part of its efforts to combat food inflation across the country and address President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s food security emergency.
Making this disclosure during the opening session of the 6th edition of Seed Connect Conference and Exhibition on Wednesday, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Aliyu Abdullahi, stated that five crops the federal government had earmarked for ambition in 2024 and stated that over 300 thousand worth of seeds have been provided to the farmers.
He said, “Nigeria’s seed requirement/need for 5 major crops of Rice, Maize, Wheat, Soybeans and Sorghum in 2024 is 312,555.69MT of seeds which is expected to give almost 31 million Mt of grains.
“The Ministry has outlined a series of critical pathways to solve the food security challenges. These pathways are streamlined into short-term, intermediate and long-term actions.
“One immediate priority is the certification of available planting material for some food security crops in the dry season farming of 2023/2024 which we flagged off in Jigawa State last Saturday, 25 November 2023.”