Nigeria sets up committee to strengthen food security — Premium Times Nigeria

Nigeria’s federal government has established a technical committee to accelerate the implementation of strategic measures in the agricultural sector. Its work will focus on increasing the production of wheat and other staple crops, as well as developing livestock farming.

Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima formed the committee during a meeting on the agricultural sector and strategic measures at the presidential complex in Abuja. As Premium Times Nigeria reports, the vice president instructed participants to exchange ideas and prepare an implementation plan for these measures.

Committee composition

The body includes representatives of the federal ministries of agriculture and food security, water resources and sanitation, as well as livestock development. The committee also includes MOFI, the coordinator of the presidential livestock reform, and the president’s senior special assistants on agribusiness and productivity, food security, and livestock development.

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Other participants include the heads of the Bank of Industry, the Bank of Agriculture, the National Agricultural Land Development Authority, the National Seed Council, the National Agricultural Development Fund, the National Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation, the National Sugar Council of Nigeria, the Nigerian Commodity Exchange, and the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure.

Work priorities

The committee will be coordinated by the vice president’s technical adviser on agriculture and head of the Presidential Food Systems Coordination Unit, Marion Moon. Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Abubakar Kyari said that meeting participants also discussed farmers’ challenges and the use of available resources to expand wheat production and develop dry-season farming.

According to Kyari, the technical committee’s report must first be reviewed by another committee, after which it will be submitted to the vice president and subsequently to the president. Moon noted that the development of the agricultural sector is a shared responsibility of the federal government, states, and local authorities. She pointed to the need to eliminate coordination gaps between these levels in order to better understand the situation at the state level.