Nigerian Government to Establish Prison Service Farms
The Federal Government has said that it will establish Prison Service Farms in the country as part of efforts to implement the Nigerian Correctional Act.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Muhammed Sabo Nanono made this disclosure at the 4th Regular Meeting of the National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD) in Abuja.
Nanono, in a statement on Thursday, explained that the prison farms would serve as a training ground for inmates serving time in correctional institutions
According to him, the farms seek to fulfill Nigeria’s aim of reforming, rehabilitating and reintegrating offenders back into the mainstream of society.
The development, the minister added, was in tandem with the global trend of helping inmates to earn a living and vocation while serving time.
Nanono also noted that the non-availability of food commodities was coming to an end in the country with the disposition and ability of the Federal Government to attract massive private investment profiles into the sector.
This, he said was true with the emergence of Dangote, BUA and several other companies investing in fertiliser plants across the country.
Nanono also divulged that as part of efforts to curtail the outflow of the much-needed foreign exchange and spending on the importation of food items, the government has encouraged and facilitated the sizeable increase in private investment in sugar production plants and cane sugar plantations around the country.
The result, the minister revealed, will halt the importation of sugar into Nigeria in three to four years.
He further expressed optimism that agricultural development will soon witness exponential growth with President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s mechanisation drive as well as the prevalence of a sizeable number of extension workers across the country.
On his part, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Dr. Earnest Umakhihe lauded President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s intense effort in seeing to the entrenchment of food and nutrition security in Nigeria.
