The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has said the Federal Government’s mechanisation programme is on course as a good innovation that will inject about 10,000 tractors into the sector.
Ogbeh noted that developing agriculture especially at the rural areas, cannot be effective without deploying the services of tractors and other machines.
He also said that government lacks the capacity to manage tractors and that is why the private sector was invited to drive the programme.
Ogbeh spoke in Abuja when Nigerian Agricultural Mechanisation and Equipment Leasing Company (NAMEL), Tractors Owners and Operators Association of Nigeria (TOOAN) and Tractors Owners and Hiring Facilities Association (TOHFAN), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the proposed 10,000 units of tractors and Agric mechanisation programme.
He said: “The Memorandum of Understanding that we are signing today is one of the greatest innovation in agricultural sector because government cannot manage tractors, with the experience of so many years the tractors never last, they were supposed to last for 15 years but due to poor handling they only last for two or three years.”
The minister, who debunked the rice importation claims, also stated that part of the reasons for the agriculture mechanisation programme was to ensure that food production in Nigeria was boosted optimally.
He added: “We have challenged that report, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a statement that not even one single letter of credit has been opened for rice importation in the last two years.
“So, what do they mean by importation, we are not aware about any rice importation into the country, except if they are talking about smuggling which we are fighting.
“Even though we had floods farmers are beginning their harvest now and we are not sensing any danger of not been able to satisfy our needs.”
Also speaking about the MoU, the Chief Executive of NAMEL, Dr. Ahmed Adekunle, said the private sector driven agricultural mechanisation programme was to bridge the gap between stakeholders in ensuring delivery of sustainable mechanisation services to commercial, medium scale and smallholder farmers.
He said: “This programme brings hope to the smallholder farmers because they don’t need to own a tractor to mechanisation their operations, because it offers them a platform to just pay a fee for services they require.”
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