MechanisationThe Federal Government has reiterated its commitment to improve food security through mechanisation.The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, stated this on Wednesday in Abuja during a technical meeting with John Deere Group on agricultural mechanisation.He expressed optimism that the Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU), signed in November 2023 to provide 2,000 tractors in 2024 for farmers was still achievable.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the federal government in November 2023, signed an MoU with John Deere, Asia (Singapore) Ltd. on agricultural mechanisation to enhance food security.
Kyari said that tractors would be made available to both small and large scale farmers to boost farming and achieve food security in Nigeria.
He said the tractors would also be made available to farmers at affordable cost.
โCooperatives will be included so that small farmers can have access to the tractors.
โWe are also going to collaborate with large scale farmers because they also contribute to food security.
โSo it is also important we engage with both the smallholder and large scale farmers.
โWe are under-tractorised right now as a country and every journey begins with a step.
โJohn Deere is one of the largest agricultural equipment manufacturers in the world,โ he said.
Also, the Minister of State for Agriculture, Sen. Aliyu Abdullahi, expressed optimism that the tractors, once made available, would boost farming activities.
He said that the tractors would achieve its aim of ensuring food security.
Earlier, the Managing Director, John Deere Ltd, Mr Stephan Gouws, said the programme in delivering the tractors included capacity building, technology transfer among others.
Gouws said that the company was not out to sell tractors and leave Nigeria as others did in the past.
โThe major thing we want to do is to increase the profitability of the farmers.
โIt can be the smallholder farmer or large holder farmer, the goal of all these is to increase profitability.
โWe want to build the community, and we have this programme running elsewhere in Africa.
โIt is the largest progamme we are unlocking and we are really excited,โ he said. (NAN)
