Ex-Minister, Firm Okay FG’s Agric Policies

The former Minister of
Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr Michael Aondoakaa, last Monday, rated the Federal Government’s agricultural policies as the best since the inception of the country.
Aondoakaa stated this while fielding questions from newsmen in Abuja on the sidelines of the official launch of the 2014 Dry Season Farm Support programme.
“For somebody to say nothing is being done in agriculture, to me, it is strange; since the beginning of this country, this is best agric policy; anybody who says contrary will have to give reasons.
‘’As a participant in agriculture, and I have been part of government before, I have never seen a well focused and a more articulated policy than that of this government.’’
The former minister said the present Federal Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda had increased the number of integrated mills in the country from one to 15, through the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme.
‘’The policies are well defined and straight forward and we that are in the processing industry, we are seeing the reality of the programme.
“Without the Commercial Credit Scheme, we could not have had the new processing mills that have come up; before this government, we had just one integrated mill, but today we have 15 of them.
“By the end of this year, five more will be commissioned, bringing it to a total of 20 integrated mills with a combined annual capacity of about 1.2 million tonnes of rice.’’
Aondoakaa noted that the policies had come to stay, saying that the stakeholders in the sector were part of the process that evolved it.
In a separate interview, the Managing Director, Elephant Group, Mr Tunji Owoye, noted that this administration had recorded huge reduction in rice smuggling into the country.
The Tide reports that the Elephant Group is involved in the production and importation of rice into the country, to fill the gap in local production.
Owoye said due to the approach of the Federal Government to find solutions to problems bedevilling the agriculture sector, policies put in place had forced smugglers to divert the embargoed goods to other African countries.
The managing director noted that the Elephant Group, being one of the three largest importers of rice, had since gone into rice production, due to the support of the government to the sector.
He disclosed that about 40 per cent of members of the group had started to cultivate rice for consumption.
He predicted that within the next four years, rice importation would become history in the country, if the Agricultural Transformation Agenda policy was consistently and meticulously implemented.
Owoye urged all stakeholders to ensure the success of the agricultural policy for the benefit of the nation.