The All Progressives Congress(APC) Legacy Awareness and Campaign group says the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is moving Nigeria steadily towards self-sufficiency in food production.
Mr Lanre Issa-Onilu, spokesperson for the group, said this in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja.
Issa-Onilu said the level of advancement in agriculture in the country under the Buhari’s administration had never been witnessed since independence.
He expressed satisfaction with the administration’s efforts in repositioning agriculture as the fulcrum of the country’s economic development.
“Since 2015 when the administration took over, it has put no one in doubt of its determination to transform the agricultural sector as a major pillar of the country’s economy,” Issa-Onilu said.
He said that the administration had made bold statement with its determined efforts at diversifying the country’s economic through agriculture.
He said Buhari’s agricultural revolution was made up of several critical policies for the enhancement of growth and development.
He said such policies included the inauguration of the National Food Security Council (NFSC), Agriculture for Food and Jobs Plan (AFJP), National Livestock Transformation Plan, the Anchors Borrowers Programme and National Fertiliser Initiative (NFI).
Issa-Onilu said the development clearly showed that Nigeria’s journey towards prosperity was already afoot, nothing that in Anambra, Coscharis Group began cultivation of rice in 2016, on a 2,500 hectare farm.
He said in Niger, the BUA Group was working on completing a 300 million dollars integrated facility comprising a Sugar Mill, Ethanol Plant, Sugar Refinery and Power Plant and a 20,000-Hectare Farm.
“In Kebbi, GB Foods has invested N20 billion in a Tomato Processing Factory supplied by what is said to be the single largest tomato farm in the country.
“Future phases of the investment will make it the largest processing facility for fresh tomatoes in sub-Saharan Africa,”
Issa-Onilu said.
He said that same GB Foods in July 2020, opened its N5.5 billion Mayonnaise production facility in Ogun, which would be supplied with input from the company’s new farms in Kebbi State.
He said that in Lagos, Ariel Foods recently constructed and completed the biggest Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) production facility in Africa.
He said the Dangote Group had commissioned its 2 billion dollar Fertiliser Plant with an annual capacity of three million metric tonnes, the largest fertiliser plant in West Africa.
“In June 2021, the plant began delivering an average of 120 trucks of Urea per week to the Nigerian market, and is also set to target the export market across West Africa and beyond,” he said.
He said different state governments were already keying into the President’s agriculture vision.(NAN)
