James Emejo in Abuja
The federal government has opened discussions with Chinese agricultural/construction machinery vendors to boost the current administration’s agricultural transformation agenda as well as achieve food security.
This followed a closed-door session between top officials of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security led by Director, Mechanisation Department, Mr. Sule Majeed, and officials of Tee-Pama Nigeria Limited, vendors of the Chinese YTO Group Corporation in Abuja.
Addressing journalists after the meeting, the ministry’s Head, Procurement and Administration Department, Mr. Akintunde Akinkumi, said the government remained committed to fostering partnerships to effectively drive the agriculture mechanization in the country.
He said under the partnership agreement, Chinese Group will through their local partner, supply 85,000 farming and construction machineries and implements to boost the current administration’s Renewed Hope agenda, particularly in revolutionizing the sector.
He told THISDAY that the supply would be carried out within two years with back up components and spare parts to be distributed to the 774 Local Government Areas with one- or two-years warranty to the federal government.
Akinkumi said, “A large number of YTO tractors samples were to be procured by the federal government for about five state governments which included Kaduna, Zamfara, Kano, Ebonyi among others, as the preliminary phase for the implementation of the Agricultural Mechanisation System (AMS).
“The outstanding performances of the YTO tractors led to the tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), among the federal government, states and YTO CAMACO in 2016 for the supply of 80,000 YTO tractors.
“Although the MoU could not be fully realised due to the recession in Nigeria at that period, nonetheless the preliminary tractors supplied have maintained their performances.”
During the meeting, Niger State Commissioner of Agriculture, Hon. Salihu Bosso said the government was cultivating 250,000 hectares of land across the state in the first year of the present administration stressing that the state would become the agriculture food hub in Nigeria in the next few years.
Bosso said, “We are happy that we are here to collaborate to ensure that we redirect the minds of our people into agriculture. His Excellency, the farmer Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago is committed to solving the critical problems bedeviling the society using agriculture as a strategy to ensure that our people can feed themselves all-round the year.”
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