By Stella Omona
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security. Sen. Abubakar Kyari, has inaugurated two committees namely logistics and blending to work out the modalities for utilizing the donated 33,000 metric tons of granular potash raw materials for subsequent distribution of the finished products to small holder farmers to boost food and nutrition security.
The Minister during the inauguration held at his office, in Abuja recently, pointed out that the essence was to enable government address the food emergency situation as well as the new administration’s commitment to revive and secure the nation’s food.
“We will not rest on our oars until the cloud foisted by the high cost of food prizes is swept off the skies over Nigeria,” he said and noted that it was the task that President Bola Tinubu saddled him and his colleague with which they have both resolved to deliver on.
He assured that under his leadership, the ministry was primed to fully deploy all resources at its disposal to force an era of Renewed Hope for all.
Sen. Kyari stated that farmers need NPK Fertilizer, which was the result of process of blending Urea, Limestone granules (LSG), Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) and Muriate of Potash (MOP), noting that two of the raw materials (urea and limestone) can be found locally, while other materials were imported.
He explained that the DAP is gotten from Morocco while the Potash is from Europe.
“It is the 4th component that our friends from across the Atlantic have graciously made available to us. This show of support is profoundly appreciated and we are once again very grateful to the Vice-President for taking up the responsibility to steer this process on behalf of Mr. President”.
He therefore tasked the committee members to ensure that the products were received and put to good use towards positively enhancing the situational realities of the people.
In his remarks, the Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Dr. Aliyu Abdullahi, commended the Committee members and revealed that the meeting was a follow up on what was discussed at the Vice President’ s Office.
He noted that the eight point agenda that had been unveiled by the president at the inaugural meeting was very apt and one of its mandate was to eliminate poverty which the agric sector ought to play a great role.
Sen. Abdullahi, therefore, tasked the critical stakeholders to work towards redefining and positioning the agricultural sector to achieve a workable result.
In her remarks, the Technical Adviser on Sustainability, Office of the Vice President, Ms. Marion Moon stated that the Office of the Vice President was ready to support the ministers to meet the objectives and address the issue of food security in Nigeria.
The membership of the two sub-committees were drawn from relevant stakeholders in the public and private sector.
The two committees were set up to handle the upstream and downstream process of actualizing the overall objectives of government, amongst others.
