Agric minister: Farmers have made more money under Buhari

Mohammad Abubakar, minister of agriculture and rural development, says farmers have made more money under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Speaking on Thursday at an event organised by the All Progressives Congress (APC) agro commodity directorate of the party’s presidential campaign council, Abubakar said agriculture is a sustainable path to wealth for Nigeria.

“In the last eight years, farmers have never had it this good. When he (Buhari) was elected in 2015, he made it a point to turn Nigeria into an agric giant that we should have been years back,” the minister said.

“In the 1960s, Nigeria was an agricultural giant, exporting commodities all over the world. The infrastructure that was built around this time from earnings in agriculture.

“After the discovery of oil we went to sleep as far agriculture is concerned. Then we realised that oil is a fluke and that it can disappear and cause climate change.

“Farmers — small, medium, and large — have made more money in the last seven and half years than in the previous administrations. This administration has made more budgetary provisions and special intervention in the agric space than the previous governments.

“This administration has made sure that on the world front, Nigeria is a shining example. We are rice self-sufficient.

“We are number one in Africa. We are number one in cassava in the whole world.”

On his part, Abubakar Bello, head of the agro commodity directorate, said the country has been able to produce what it needs and is gearing up for export.

“We cannot afford to allow in a clueless government that had already promised to open the national borders and take us back to the era of massive food and weapons import and make our over 70 newly established integrated rice mills and other agricultural investments to become moribund and our youths unemployed,” he said.

Bello said Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the APC, would build on the achievements of Buhari in the agriculture sector.

Also speaking, Retson Tedheke, secretary of the directorate, said the federal government must treat the agricultural sector as a national security issue, not just a commercial venture.

Meanwhile, the minister’s comment comes amid concerns over how security challenges in parts of the country have affected the output of farmers.