The Federal Government has said the country only has 5,000 units of tractors working perfectly for mechanised farming.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, stated this on Tuesday during the sectorial debate on food security at the House of Representatives.
According to Kyari, the country needs at least 72,000 units of tractors to successfully embark on mechanised farming, adding that Nigeria has not made significant progress in mechanised agriculture.
The minister asserted that the lack of tractors for large-scale farming is a huge setback for us in the country.
He said: “Today, we find out that people are just doing agriculture as a means of survival and subsistence. We have to make agriculture (as a) business. We have to turn it around.
“Today, I am not too sure if we have 5,000 tractors fully working in Nigeria. With what we have in terms of arable landscape, we need over 72,000.”
The minister said the federal government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with John Deere, an agricultural equipment manufacturer in the US, to supply the country with tractors.
He said the MoU, which was signed in November 2023, involves John Deere supplying the country with 2,000 tractors a year for the next five years.
Kyari said, “As I speak, they are in Lagos today and will arrive in Abuja this evening. We will hold a meeting for the second time with the partners who are here.”
The minister said President Bola Tinubu has directed that 42,000 metric tons of assorted grains be distributed to address the food inflation in the country.
Kyari said the remaining 11,000 is for “strategic storage” for uncertainty that may befall the country.
He said the 42,000 are being distributed by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in collaboration with the Office of the National Security Advisor (ONSA).
The minister said the federal government received 5,000 metric tons of grains from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which will be added to the 42,000.
He noted that COVID-19, flooding, the naira redesign policy, and smuggling impacted food production in the country and raised food prices.
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