The minister of agriculture and rural development, Muhammed Sabo Nanono on Monday decried the poor penetration of Agriculture mechanisation in the Nigeria agricultural sector, a situation which many say still impedes much needed food security.
The minister who addressed stakeholders at the special agro-processing zones workshop in Abuja said that ensuring a wide spread of farm machines remain critical to creating sustainability in the agriculture sector.
He said, “Poor agricultural Mechanisation has remained the fundamental issue in this sector, and we must all collaborate to see that we have enough tractors to serve the agricultural need for the Nigerian population”.
“Promoting Mechanisation is one tool that can move this sector forward, and until we get it right in this area, we won’t be able to achieve our objective of food security”.
The minister speaking further, said that there is need for the collaboration between the agriculture and industrial sector.
“We are trading on the average of 1.5 to 2 tonnes per hectare across board. But in those countries that we are sighting you are talking of eight to 10 tonnes per hectare, the answer is agriculture mechanization and is crucial to this cluster of industry we are talking about”.
“Nigeria we have 7 tractors per half a square kilometers which leads to about 7, 000 hectares with a country with 92 million hectares of cultivatable land. This is a challenge to us and a platform for us to move forward”.
Nanono stated that the efforts are ongoing to aid the development of competitive processing capacity through the promotion of private sector investment, enabled by investment in public goods, policy interventions and the provision of desirable support services and skills development.
