All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) says it is fully committed to the realisation of the goals of the emergency on Food Security declared by the federal government recently.
The farmers group said it has set up three new committees in addition to an already existing one to ensure effective implementation of the emergency programme.
The committees according to the association are: Seed Committee, Mechanization Committee and science and technology innovation (STI) Committee in addition to its existing Fertilizer Committee already working with the Federal Government to fashion out the best way to bring down the price of fertilizer.
National President of AFAN, Arc Kabir Ibrahim said the aim is to ensure that smallholder farmers are able to scale their productivity to be able to bring about the much needed Food Security.
Ibrahim in a statement sent to Financialtrust.com.ng, said it is pertinent to note that the food system requires synergy with all stakeholders in order to fully reinvigorate it and make food less costly and therefore readily available to the majority of the people.
“Seed,they say, is sino-quo-non to Agricultural productivity and its optimum utilization is germane in the quest for the attainment of food security,” he said.
“Mechanization essentially replaces human power with machine power thereby optimizing efficiency through the maximum utilization of mechanical advantage.
“In Nigeria today mechanization is below average and for it to reach a desired level certain improvisations, innovations and sometimes disruptive innovations may have to be embraced.
“In the short term small hand-held and light farm machinery must be utilized before procuring heavier and more efficient farm machinery which cost more, especially, taking cognizance of the dwindling purchasing power of the naira.”
He said that another very important vehicle for scaling up productivity is the full deployment of STI (science, technology and innovation) which he said has so many components from mitigation of climate change, climate smart Agriculture, deployment of Agricultural Biotechnology, artificial insemination, vertical farming, hydroponics, SCI (system of crop intensification), good agricultural practice (GAP), food safety, further Research to mitigate or reduce post harvest loss, value addition,storage, sales,marketing etc.
It would be recalled that because of the escalating food prices, the new administration of President Bola Tinubu declared an emergency on food security with a plan to massively address some of the challenges mitigating massive food production in the country.