The Federal Government in a new drive to enhance Nigeria’s food security, has secured a $134 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to improve the production of wheat, rice, and millet.<\/p>\n
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, announced the initiative at the launch of the 2024\/2025 National Dry Season farming program and the start of the country\u2019s wheat cultivation efforts in Calabar.<\/p>\n
The event, held at the Cross River Basin Development Authority, gathered key stakeholders from the agricultural sector.<\/p>\n
Kyari explained that the AfDB loan would support the government\u2019s renewed commitment to year-round farming, with a goal to reduce dependency on imports and strengthen domestic food reserves.<\/p>\n
Kyari emphasized that the program, part of the National Agricultural Growth Support Scheme-Agro Pocket (NAGS-AP) Project, aligns with the government\u2019s declared \u201cemergency on food production.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stated that the initiative seeks to make nutritious food more accessible and affordable, while also positioning agriculture as a tool for national economic revival.<\/p>\n
The minister noted that, to date, thousands of farmers have been supported under the initiative: 107,429 wheat farmers in the 2023\/2024 dry season and nearly 200,000 farmers for rice, maize, millet, soybean, and cassava during the 2024 wet season across all states.<\/p>\n
In particular, Cross River State, a leading wheat-producing region, will benefit from increased support to enhance local wheat output.<\/p>\n
Kyari announced that for the upcoming 2024\/2025 dry season, 250,000 wheat farmers will receive subsidized inputs to cultivate 250,000 hectares, with an anticipated yield of 750,000 metric tons of wheat.<\/p>\n
Cross River Governor Bassey Otu, represented by Deputy Governor Peter Odey, assured full state support for the program, emphasizing their commitment to enhancing irrigation and grain production.<\/p>\n
Otu highlighted Cross River\u2019s agricultural policy aimed at increasing food availability and making the state a leader in seed and grain production.<\/p>\n
The national project director for the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. I. Goba, shared that the program will be implemented in two phases, providing farmers with quality seeds and inputs necessary for sustainable growth in agricultural productivity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal Government in a new drive to enhance Nigeria’s food security, has secured a $134 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to improve the production of wheat, rice, and millet. Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, announced the initiative at the launch of the 2024\/2025 National Dry Season farming program […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":55823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55822"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55829,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55822\/revisions\/55829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}