Local production key to entrenching food security – Expert

The Managing Director, Gezawa Commodity Exchange Market, Ahaji Muhammad Rabiu El-Yakub, has described local food production as a veritable mechanism for the entrenchment of a formidable food security system across the nation.

Speaking while receiving members of the Amana Farmers and Grains Suppliers Association at a meeting held at the premises of the multi-million market complex in Gezawa town of Kano state recently, El-Yakub stated that enhancing and supporting local food production would serve as a major catalyst towards reducing over dependence on importing food into the country.

According to him with the closure of the nation’s borders which was effected to curb smuggling of food items into the country, local producers of food items like rice and host of other food commodities, farmers and local production companies have been emboldened to sustain the war against the importation of food items into the country.

He however stated that the Gezawa Commodity Exchange Market had been conceived and well established to serve the needs of farmers and local producers willing to give a proper protection of what they were producing stressing that the company is also willing to assist local farmers in exporting their commodities beyond Nigeria’s borders.

He pointed out that creating synergy between major stakeholder has become imperative for areas of strategic considerations to be examined affirming that the Amana Farmers and Grains Suppliers Association is poised to play a spectacular role in achieving the quest for entrenching a sound food security system.

In his remarks, the Vice President, Amana Farmers and Grains Suppliers Association, Alhaji Musa Saleh, described the Gezawa Commodity Exchange Market as a launch-pad for serving the needs of farmers and the producers of food items locally, stressing however that the cardinal policy of the federal government on agriculture would serve as an additional tonic towards achieving the desired objectives.