Abubakar Kyari, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security has flagged off, on behalf of the Federal Government, the first edition of National Dry Season Farming in Cross River State.
This was an effort by the Federal Government to boost food production, encourage sustainability and guarantee food security with a bid to tackling hunger and starvation in the County.
Kyari noted that through a loan of $134 million from African Development Bank (AfDB), the Federal Government would boost farmers’ capacity to increase production of staple food crops like wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, soybean, cassava, among other crops through dry and wet season farming.
Speaking while flagging off the programme, Kyari stated that the ceremony marked the commencement of 2024/25 dry season farming and maiden edition of wheat cultivation under the National Agricultural Growth Support Scheme-Agro Pocket (NAGS-AP) Project in the State.
He recalled that President Bola Tinubu declared emergency on food production to enable all Nigerians get easy accessibility to quality food at affordable rates.
“It is also worthy to note that the National Dry Season Farming was re-introduced to boost year-round agricultural production and with a view to guarantee national food and nutrition security in the country,” he said.
Kyari stated that through NAGS- AP, Government was able to support 107,429 wheat farmers under the Phase One of the 2023/2024 dry season farming.
He stressed that a total of 43,997 rice farmers had also been supported under the Second Phase of the 2023/2024 dry season with recent 192,095 rice, maize, sorghum/millet, soybean and cassava farmers under the 2024 wet season across the 36 States including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
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