Federal Government has constituted a technical committee to accelerate the production of wheat and other staple crops, expand livestock development and address challenges confronting farmers as part of efforts to strengthen food security across the country.
Vice-President Kashim Shettima constituted the committee on Tuesday during a high-level meeting on agricultural sector performance and strategic interventions at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Shettima charged members to develop a comprehensive blueprint for implementing the government’s agricultural interventions, stressing the need to harmonise expertise and coordinate activities across relevant ministries, departments and agencies.
The initiative followed a meeting between President Bola Tinubu and stakeholders from the agricultural sector and other critical areas of the economy, where the need to identify and address obstacles to agricultural productivity was discussed.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, said the meeting examined critical challenges facing farmers and explored ways to expand wheat production and dry-season farming by leveraging available resources.
Kyari explained that Tinubu had directed the Vice-President to identify existing constraints in the agricultural sector and develop measures to address them, particularly through improved coordination among federal, state and local governments.
He said the committee, comprising representatives of relevant ministries, government agencies and agricultural development institutions, would coordinate interventions and develop actionable recommendations for implementation.
The committee includes representatives of the ministries responsible for agriculture and food security, water resources and sanitation, and livestock development, as well as the Ministry of Finance Incorporated.
Chief executives of the Bank of Agriculture, Bank of Industry, National Agricultural Development Fund, National Agricultural Land Development Authority, National Agricultural Seeds Council and other agricultural institutions are also represented.
The committee will be coordinated by the Vice-President’s Technical Adviser on Agriculture and Head of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, Marion Moon.
Moon called for stronger collaboration among the three tiers of government, identifying gaps in coordination as a challenge to effective agricultural planning and implementation.
She stressed the need to align federal interventions with activities at the state and local government levels to ensure that policies reflect the realities of agricultural production across the country.
Kyari added that the committee’s report would undergo further review before being submitted to the Vice-President and subsequently to the President for consideration.
