The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has described Nigeria’s status as Africa’s largest rice producer, and the world’s largest producer of cassava, as a clear testament to the significant progress in the Agricultural sector under President Muhammad Buhari.
The group said in a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, that the government’s rice production programme helped boost food security at a time of the global COVID-19 crisis.
“Even before the pandemic, the federal government had saved about $6bn which would have gone into importing rice between 2015 and 2019. The quantity of rice coming into the country is known to have reduced by 95 per cent which amounts to a daily saving of about $5million.
“This achievement is a result of calculated and deliberate policies’ implementation by the Buhari administration to fulfil his promise on self-sufficiency in food production.
“The Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) is one of such initiatives spearheaded by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and which has made a very positive impact, since it was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari on November 17, 2015.
“Farmers were given soft loans with very low-interest rates through ABP and that impacted the nation’s local production and significantly reduced rice imports in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
“This not only empowered rice farmers and processors in the country but also resulted in a massive boost in rice production in the country and created more than 500,000 jobs”.
BMO noted that the decision to shut the country’s borders to rice importation also made it easier for Nigerians not to feel the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on availability of rice.
“The border closure contributed in its own way to ramping up local rice consumption and we don’t need to remind Nigerians how countries shut their borders in the aftermath of Covid-19.
“We just wonder what would have happened if there had not been local alternatives to rice imports from the Asian countries in the middle of the pandemic”.
“So the Buhari administration has proved that the lesser a country is dependent on other sovereigns, especially on commodities that can be produced locally, the better it becomes”.
It urged Nigerians to see the feat as a thing of joy and a true indication that President Buhari is gradually, and successfully, moving the country from a mono-economy to a diversified economy in the face of unpredictable crude oil prices.