By Gift Chapi Odekina
The Minister of Agriculture, Muhammad Abubakar has said that the Ministry was already discussing going into intensive dry season farming to ensure food security in the country.
The minister said this in Abuja on Thursday when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture Colleges, Research Institutes and Universities to defend the 2023 budget.
“The country is going into intensive dry-season farming beginning from December to make sure there is continuous production of food, so that there will be food in the land. Food security is everything else before other security. Without food, we have issues.
He said, “there is slight elevation of commodities, that is a world phenomenon. But we are doing everything on our own to see what we can do to bring down the prices.”
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Munir Danagundi said records available to the committee indicated that budget released in 2021 and 2022 had been very impressive.
He said most of the research institutes and Universities had satisfactorily utilized the funds allocated and released by government, while commending their effort for the achievement despite some challenges.
He said The committee was ever ready to assist the ministry to surmount any challenge that could arise in the implementation of the budget.
“We have intervened to solve problems associated with budget implementation in some agencies during our oversight visits to the agencies some weeks ago.
“The committee was generally impressed with the performance of the budget and has drawn the attention of some CEO where some inadequacies and flaws associated with procurement were observed,” he said.
He said the attention of the committee was drawn to the protracted strike action by the three unions of the research institutes namely Academic Staff Union of Research Institutes, (ASURI).
Others include: Senior Staff Association (SSA) and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) which started since Oct. 2021.
This according to him, means the staff have been on strike for 13 months and nobody has reported to the committee.
He said the Committee was curious to know how the affected agencies had been able to implement the budget alongside the strike.
“It is quite unfortunate that while the government is struggling to fully fund the budget including payment of salaries and allowances, staff are not appreciating the good gesture of the government.
