Farmers under the aegis of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) have said that the palliative rolled out by President Bola Tinubu was not the solution to hunger in the country.
This was contained in a statement signed by the National President of AFAN, Arc Kabir Ibrahim, calling on the president to establish sustainable food banks that would address current food production challenges in the country.
The statement listed some of the challenges to include high cost of farm inputs, fuel, invasion of farms by terrorist, killing of famers and others.
Architect Ibrahim said the country can achieve food self-sufficiency if competent hands were brought to utilize the nation’s agricultural resources.
He said the quest for sustainable food security in a nation of over 200 million people transcends the distribution of palliatives but essentially calls for the scaling up of productivity and reinvigorating the entire food system by taking decisive actions.
“A temporary relief may assuage a hungry person for a few days or months depending on the magnitude of the relief package but a more sustainable solution to the ailing food system is the most desirable proposition in the face of the almost existential challenges we are facing.
“Nigeria is subdivided into six geopolitical zones comprising of North Central with six states; North East with six states plus FCT, North West with six states; South East with five states; South-South with six states and South West with six states, with each of these zones having its food or preferred meal,” the statement read in part.
He advised that for the country to be self-sufficient, “We must do the following without any delay: Expand our cultivable and irrigable land; commit to educating our farmers to embrace Good Agricultural Practices (GAP); climate smart agricultural production leading to all year round cultivation; invest in sustainable mechanization, Science Technology and Innovation (STI); and biotechnology leading to genetic engineering as well as genome editing and others.”
The farmers’ president advised government to appoint very competent, hardworking and honest hands in the agricultural space.
