The Federal Government has concluded plans for dry season rice farming in its phase two of support for farmers toward increased harvests and food security for Nigerians.
Sen. Abubakar Kyari, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, said this while briefing State House correspondents.
He said the Federal Government would support not less than 400,000 farmers to cultivate 200,000 hectares.
“Rice cultivation in dry season takes place in irrigated areas in the whole country, 36 states plus FCT.
“We are starting end of this month and early February in the southern parts of the country where we have already identified clusters where irrigation farming will take place and southern part of north-central zone.
“That is because the rain starts early and we are going to start doing the dry season farming much ahead of what we used to do.
“So, the northern part from the middle part of north-central to the upper part of north-east and north-west will be sometime a month later in February,” said Kyari.
He said another intervention by his ministry to boost food security was the provision of tractors.
“We have started receiving some of the tractors that have been procured since October 2024.
“The 2,000 tractors from Belarus have started arriving in Nigeria. We should start delivering them to Abuja, where we are going to assemble some of them that are CKDs.
“Very soon, as soon as we finish the delivery and assembling, we are going to launch the tractors for onward distribution to our respective farmers,” he said.
He added that the Federal Government last week signed a deal to procure 2,000 John Deere tractors at the cost of 70 million dollars through the Nigeria Agricultural Development Fund.
“No payment has been made so far on that one, but for the ones from Belarus, we have made an upfront payment 30 per cent,” said Kyari.