The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Mohammed Abubakar, has said the President Mohammadu Buhari-led government is doing everything possible to bring up stimulus that will cause a reduction in food prices.
The minister made this known on Monday during a familiarization tour of the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) in Abuja.
In the past months, there has been a steady rise in the prices of foodstuff in the country.
“We are doing everything possible to bring up some kind of stimulus that will cause a reduction in food prices, naturally nobody will just sit and watch.
“We are doing what we can to see that the agricultural sector is improved and the food that we expect for the teeming population of Nigeria is being produced, the same thing with the livestock.
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“The government is doing everything possible. This President, Muhammadu Buhari, is very passionate about agriculture, about seeing that people have food every single day to eat without struggles on their tables,” the minister said.
The minister said he would support the agricultural research council and the research institutes in the country to work together to develop better crops that can yield more and resist disease and drought.
Dr. Mohammed also said the President specifically directed him to make sure that the research institutes in the country were being well taken care of, adding that it was his priority to see improved capacity to conduct research so that crops can be improved upon.
The minister reiterated that the government was set to reintroduce the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) after the scheme was scrapped a few years ago, adding that it has found a way that would make it work better.
“My own concern is to make sure that the input gets directly to the farmers, not being withheld by middlemen. We will do all it takes to make sure that the system that will be rolled out gets the input to the grassroots farmers,” he said.