A political activist, Mr Blessing Adima, who spoke to Saturday Vanguard in Delta State, said “Buying grains and rice for distribution to Nigerians is a misplaced priority. It goes to show that the federal government itself does not care about food production and doesn’t know how to tackle the problems that we are facing in Nigeria today.
Herdsmen have chased farmers from their farmlands and now, we import the rice that Benue State alone could have produced for Nigeria, and we also import the rice that southern Kaduna, Zamfara, Ebonyi and Taraba could have made for Nigeria.
The federal government does not know what to do. The money they are spending to import rice could have been used to tackle insecurity, banditry, terrorism and herdsmen menace and the problem would be solved.
You are talking about the Ministry of Livestock; Nigeria is not one of the greatest exporters of cow meat and milk and the top 10 countries do not practice this kind of archaic open grazing system; it is ranching that they resort to. Let us come to the South, if they are importing rice, will they import garri from China too? Agricultural produce is scarce. When Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s administration introduced its agriculture revolution, we saw how he addressed it.
Today, fertilizer is not what the peasant farmer can afford and the government is not thinking in that direction. We want to see insecurity tackled in the rural areas, and let farmers go to their farms. We want to see tractors, fertilizers and farm implements distributed to the farmers.
That is what will solve the food crisis, palliatives will not cure hunger, rather they will increase hunger because the people who should have gone to farms are in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. How will food be produced when 30 percent, if not 40 percent are in IDP camps? The government should tackle the problem of insecurity.”
Encourage farmers to return to the farm – Akene, development consultant
A development consultant, Furoebi Akene, stated, “All efforts should be made for the farmers to return to their farms. Beyond that, how honest and patriotic are the people entrusted with the distribution of the rice to ensure they get to the targeted beneficiaries? The same dubious and fraudulent characters will play out.”
Credit: vanguard news