- The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) officially initiated the 2023 farming season on Friday, marking the first time since 2019.
- The #EndSARS protests in 2020 led to vandalism and theft of essential agricultural supplies, causing a halt to the event in 2022.
- The Minister of State in the FCT, Dr Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu, disclosed that significant renovations had been made to the warehouses and that the budget for procuring agricultural inputs has been increased significantly.
- FCT Administration has procured fertilizers, irrigation equipment, mechanized farm implements, agrochemicals, and improved seedlings, to be sold to farmers at a 50% subsidized rate.
- The Permanent Secretary in the FCT Administration, Mr Olusade Adesola, highlighted that the FCT Administration is moving in the right direction as shown by the 2022 Food Security Analysis Report, which indicates a 30% reduction in food-insecure households.
News Story
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) officially launched the 2023 farming season on Friday, four years after the last occasion. The Minister of State in the FCT, Dr Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu, noted that the last time the event occurred in the FCT was in 2019. She explained that the #EndSARS protests in 2020 led to widespread looting and destruction of agricultural supplies meant for distribution to farmers.
“During the protest, almost all our warehouses were vandalized which stalled efforts of the Secretariat to organize the event in 2022,” Aliyu said.
Over the past year, the FCT Administration has been working on reconstructing and expanding various warehouses to accommodate more agricultural inputs.
In addition, the budget for procuring agricultural inputs increased from N200 million in 2021 to N2 billion in the 2023 budget. This budget has been utilized to procure various inputs, including fertilizers, irrigation equipment, mechanized farm implements, agrochemicals, and assorted improved seedlings.
The products will be sold to farmers at a 50% subsidized rate as approved by the FCT Administration.
On his part, the Permanent Secretary in the FCT Administration, Mr Olusade Adesola, noted that global hunger is at a record high, with the number of food-insecure people increasing rapidly.
However, he pointed out that the 2022 Food Security Analysis Report indicates a reduction of over 30% in the number of food-insecure households in the FCT from about 349,876 in October 2021 to 233,233 as of November 2022.
He said, “It is in line with this objective that the FCT Administration has over the years, increased the budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector, and I want to say that the support that we are giving farmers today is so far, the highest in the history of the Federal Capital Territory.”
Editorial
The move by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to relaunch the farming season after a four-year hiatus is a positive step towards food security.
The increased budgetary allocation for agricultural inputs and the efforts to distribute them at subsidized rates to farmers underlines the commitment of the FCTA to supporting the agricultural sector and tackling food insecurity.
It is encouraging to see the focus on strengthening the agricultural sector, and we hope these efforts will continue yielding positive results.
Did You Know?
- The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) increased the budgetary provision for procuring agricultural inputs from N200 million in 2021 to N2 billion in 2023.
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