President Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday charged Nigerian farmers to embrace wheat farming with the aim of putting a stop to importing products that gulps over 2 billion dollars annually.
The president made the charge at the flag off of the first ever rain- fed commercial wheat cultivation in the country at the Wheat Seed Multiplication Farm in Kwall, Bassa LGA of Plateau state.
“It is important to stress that Nigeria currently spends over $2 billion on the importation of wheat annually, one of the key contributors to the nation’s huge foreign import bill.
“This is because millers have had to resort to importing wheat to meet the huge demand for wheat by-products,” the president said.
Represented by Plateau state governor, Simon Lalong, President Buhari noted that the agricultural sector is one of the critical non-oil sectors which has made significant contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), accounting for a 22.35 and 23.78 per cent contribution to the overall GDP in the first and second quarters of 2021 respectively.
He said a key focus of his administration has been the deployment of mechanisms to ensure that agriculture thrives in Nigeria to significantly grow the economy and achieve maximum welfare for the citizens by ensuring food and energy security.
Buhari said Nigeria is on the path to actualising sustainability in the production of rice, maize, cassava, soybean, groundnut, oil palm, cocoa and very soon the breakthrough in wheat cultivation in Nigeria will be accomplished.
He however lamented that Nigeria still spends humongous amounts of money on wheat import which is not acceptable because the country has the capacity to meet domestic consumption demands and also export.
The president commended the Central Bank of Nigeria, for using the Anchor Borrowers Programme not just in the Agric value chain, but in almost all sectors of the economy as shown in the recent launch of some transformative initiatives like the 100 for 100 policy for production and productivity.
CBN governor Godwin Emefiele represented by deputy governor Edward Lamtek Adamu, said in order to change the situation and leverage domestic production to bridge the demand-supply gap in the country, the CBN decided to add wheat to the list of focal commodities to be supported under the Bank’s agricultural intervention programmes.
