BY NONYELUM JULIET EKWENUGO
Kaduna
The Technical Adviser to Kaduna State Emergency Nutrition Action Plan, Muhammad Hassan Sani has urged the federal and States government to build more dam in order to boost food production in the country.
Sani who made the call yesterday during an interview with this reporter explained that all countries that are food secured don’t only farm during rainy season, they farm all season, he said.
“We need to be producing all year round. We need to have quality and sustainable irrigation in order to solve food crisis in our country”.
According to him, government should place intervention on agriculture, review subsidy on fertilizer at the national and State level and ensure safety of lives and property.
“Farm lands are limited and expensive, one hectare of land is N250,000. Fertilizer is sold from N30,000 to N50,000, herbicide is now N5000 per liter. All this are making prices of food to go up. Government must review subsidy on agricultural inputs”.
“With simple technology government can establish half dam in all the local government areas and you will see magic, all this food insecurity will reduce. 90 per cent of insecurity is poverty and frustration, when people become helpless they see life as a threat that they don’t care to die. Establish Structure that will make sure of food security by that you are also increasing income”.
“We must bring back subsidy on agriculture, this subsidy was removed and nobody is talking about it. People are not even aware it was removed. Before the coming of the former President Muhammad Buhari fertilizer was N5,500 and food was supplied in adequate quantity. Gradually and silently government removed subsidy completely.
“Government must put active physical intervention to make farming possible, to make farming a productive way of life and that can be done by bringing subsidy back on all farming activities and then government should consider bringing back intervention and see what we were doing before that was giving us results and bring them back”.
