The Federal Government of Nigeria is set to launch 600 agricultural machinery hiring centres across the country in a fortnight. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina made this known in a statement released in Abuja recently.
The minister said the centres will have tractors and full components of mechanization equipment available for hire at lower rates to put them more within the reach of farmers. He also said the heavy farm machines will enable farmers move from small scale agriculture to full scale mechanization.
Dr Adesina took the opportunity to put out an update on rice production levels saying that out of the 17 million tonnes of paddy rice Nigeria needs to feed its populace, 9.2 million tonnes have been produced. The minister was however optimistic that the country will achieve 13million tonnes at the end of the 2014 dry season cycle. He reiterated the need for increased investment in rice mills.
According to the statement, the agricultural hiring centres will have over 55 threshers so that the process of threshing and winnowing rice will be mechanized.
“We have also developed through the National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization and the African Rice Centre small threshers that are quite affordable for farmers,” the statement said.
The minister added that the National Assembly would soon commence the process of enacting a law that will ensure the sustainability of the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme – for getting farm inputs to the real farmers.
He said the budgetary support for agriculture was likely to increase due to the fact that the ministry has effectively utilized what has hitherto been allocated to the sector. The minister’s projection is that come 2015 the Federal Government would have surpassed the target of 20million metric tons of food by 2 million tons