Minister Wants Oil Subsidy Channelled To Agric

The Minister of Agricul
ture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh said government would benefit much if the subsidy channelled to oil was diverted to agriculture.
The minister in a statement obtained by our correspondent at the Federal Secretariat, Port Harcourt was quoted to have voiced this view in an interactive session he had with the House Committee on Agricultural Colleges and Institutions at the National Assembly, recently.
Chief Ogbeh said it was time for Nigeria to do something about the importation of food and check the illegal trade in rice and polluted chicken along the Seme and Cameroon borders.
“Nigeria should look after herself before thinking about other neighbouring countries,” he said.
The minister pledged his readiness to ensuring that all the agricultural institutes that were erroneously moved out of the ministry are brought back with a view to making their functions relevant to the need of the agricultural sector.
He said the essence of Colleges of Agriculture was to produce a new generation of young farmers to take over from the old ones.
The minister added that all malfunctioning agricultural research institutes would be fixed. He further promised to establish Extension offices to be manned by extension officers in all the local government areas in Nigeria in the next four to six years.
Chief Ogbe disclosed that students  of colleges of agriculture would be involved in the new extension system.
The minister disclosed the plan of government towards ending nomadic cattle grazing through the drilling of water boreholes and the introduction of quality grasses from abroad.
“Nobody roams around with cattle anymore because government cattle breeding programme would be private sector driven,” he said. However, he said the programme would be fully supported by the Agriculture ministry.
He revealed that government would plant 500,000 seeds of Ogbono (bush mango) targeting the high demand of it in the United States of America, USA, while also considering same in cashew and shea-butter.
According to him, there would be an improvement in the quality of the country’s export products.
He however promised the readiness of the committee to work in collaboration with the ministry to urgently address the obstacles to agric modernization and diversification.