Hardship: Presidency claims efforts to ramp up food supply ongoing

The presidency said on Friday efforts towards the release of 42,000 metric tonnes of food items to support vulnerable populations across the country have reached the final stages.

The Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to the President, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this in a statement in Abuja.

He said the grains were bagged in seven locations for onward distribution to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

He said distribution of the food items would commence immediately.

Onanuga pointed out that the first batch would be complemented by the 60,000 metric tonnes of grains to be purchased by the Federal Government from the Mega Rice Millers.

He said: “The Federal Government is also ramping up food production by boosting Dry Season Farming under the National Agricultural Growth Scheme Agro-Pocket (NAGS-AP) Project.

”The First Phase of the Dry Season Farming was launched in November 2023. It focuses on the cultivation of wheat across 15 wheat-producing states, covering 118,657 hectares and involving 107,429 farmers.

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“The fields are green now and harvest will commence in a matter of weeks. There are fantastic reports of the growth of wheat from Jigawa State, which is now targeting harvest from about 50,000 hectares, 10,000 hectares more than initially allotted under the programme.”

He said Phase Two of the Dry Season Farming for rice, maize, and cassava would commence soon across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“For rice, the target is 250,000 hectares involving 500,000 farmers with the expected output of one million metric tons of paddy rice.

“For maize, we are cultivating 55,000 hectares with 110,000 farmers thereby adding 165,000 metric tons to national maize production.

“For cassava, we are doing 35,000 hectares with 70,000 farmers to produce 525,000 metric tons of cassava.

“The NAGS-AP Project offers a 50 percent subsidy.

“However, the Federal Government is providing additional support for Phase Two, which will bring aggregate subsidy to about 93 percent to farmers cultivating the crops,” the presidential aide added.

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