The United Nations through its Food and Agricultural Organisation, in partnership with the Federal Government have selected 13 states in Nigeria for agricultural intervention with respect to the production of a few crops such as rice, sorghum, soybean, etc, and dairy.
The PUNCH reported that the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mahmood Abubakar, disclosed this while soeaking at the official inauguration of the National Steering Committee on the FAO Hand-in-Hand Initiative in Nigeria.
In his address, the minister said that the selection of states for the intervention was based on their potentials for import substitution, export promotion, comparative advantage, social inclusion, and demand gap on the national, continental and global scale.
He stated, “The Hand-in-Hand initiative take cognisance of the country’s economic advantaged and disadvantaged areas in selecting the priority commodities for intervention in selected states.
“The guiding variables are states with ‘potential’, (high market-oriented, where investments are more likely to have an impact in the short term); ‘unrealised potential’, (areas with a high unrealised potential, where impact are more likely to be higher); and ‘poverty,’ (high levels of poverty for urgent intervention).
“Specifically, the programmme plan captures the following priority commodities – rice, sorghum, soybean, maize, fish, tomato, cassava and dairy.”
