The Niger State Government has expressed willingness to pilot the Federal Government’s planned 500,000 hectares of agricultural production programme announced by President Bola Tinubu in his New Year message.
The state governor, Mohammed Umar Bago, made this disclosure shortly after a meeting with President Tinubu in Abuja.
He explained that currently, Niger is the leading state in terms of the food security initiative of the President, noting that it has started the implementation of a total of 250,000 hectares of dry season farming.
On the purpose of the visit, the governor said: “We have already signed an agreement with some companies for off-take and just to keep him up to speed with what we are doing in agriculture.
“If you had listened carefully to Mr. President’s New Year’s speech, you would have seen the emphasis on agriculture and also the 500,000 hectares the government is planning to farm in 2024.
“The state has also provided itself as a pilot state for that project and is also ambitious to match the federal government’s 500,000 with 500,000.”
Speaking further on farmers displaced from their ancestral homes in the state by insecurity, he said, “They are already back on their farms.”