Nigeria targets 60,000 tractors to drive agric mechanisation

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Muhammad Sabo Nanono says the Federal Government is targeting 60, 000 tractors to drive the agricultural mechanisation programme. The programme will bring about a paradigm shift from subsistence practice to commercial agro-industrial farming for food production, procurement of agricultural processing plants, fertiliser production as well as enhanced value chains.

Nanono said this while receiving in audience participants of the senior executive course (SEC) N0 43(2021) of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Plateau State who visited him in Abuja.

The minister noted that mechanisation would enhance local technologies evolution with over 600 private sector- driven service centres, equipped, tractors, farming implements, storage and IT facilities.

He said that agricultural mechanisation now revolves around the world, “this would address the challenge of feeding the nation’s growing population and achieving food sustainability, create jobs for teeming Nigeria Youths and boost the economy’’.

In her remarks, leader of the delegation who is also the director of studies at NIPSS, Olufumilayo Para-Mallam expressed delight at the interactive discourse on agricultural policies of the ministry.

Para-Mallam added that the theme for the SEC 43, 2021 as approved by the president, is “Getting things done: strategies for policy and programme implementation.”