Tag Archives: Audu Ogbeh

Reports of imminent famine in Nigeria are false – Agric Minister Ogbeh

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The Federal Government has denied the reports by some United Nations (UN) agencies of imminent famine in Nigeria, saying there is no threat of starvation in the whole country.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, made the denial when he featured at a News Agency of Nigeria Forum in Abuja.

NAN reports that three UN agencies — Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Food Programme and International Fund for Agricultural Development – reported that Nigeria would suffer famine, food shortage and malnutrition.

Mr. Ogbeh stressed that it was virtually impossible for Nigeria to face famine or starvation because the country remained a major source of food for other African countries such as Algeria and Libya.

“I think there’s a danger of mixing the situation in the North-East with the situation nationwide; I have seen that on CNN, starvation in Somalia and Nigeria, and then they go on to talk about the civil commotion in the North-East

“I don’t think that the rest of Nigeria is facing any threat of famine. That is not true and I think these agencies have to be a little more careful in their prognoses.

“I think there are challenges in the North-East because this is a huge part of Nigeria which for five years has not engaged in food production.

“That’s not the same in the North-West or North-Central or South-West or South-South.

“So, I think there is some degree of exaggeration and a mixture of situations, there’s no threat of starvation because we have been feeding Africa.

“People come down from Algeria to buy food in Nigeria, they come from Libya, they come from Sudan and they come from Chad.

“So, to suggest that this country that is feeding the rest of Africa is almost to go totally hungry is not true. “

As regards malnutrition in the country, the minister conceded that this could occur as result of unbalanced food nutrients ingested by some people, wrong approach to food processing and materials used for packaging of food.

Mr. Ogbeh stressed that his ministry was trying to re-engineer food processing procedures in the country.

“As for malnutrition, there is that possibility, the simple reason being that there is a difference between eating much and eating well.

“And there is also the problem of our diet which the ministry is beginning to work on for the first time seriously.

“Eating well means taking all the nutrients the body requires; vitamins and proteins and carbohydrates in an even balance.

“And there are other threats to health — the way we process food. We have to totally re-engineer the processing of food in this country.

“We are trying to remove import duties on stainless steel, using only stainless steel even in the grinding machines in the markets and in the grinding machines for corns and millet and what have you.

“Bits of ferrous oxides are getting into food and metal poisoning is deadly; these are the issues we are looking at.

“If you ingest a lot of ferrous oxide, your kidney and liver begin to fail, there is nothing any doctor can do to help you

“And now we have brought back the three Universities of Agriculture under our ministry.

“One of the faculties of colleges we are going to insist that each of these new universities should embark upon is the School or College of Food and Health Sciences.

“We need to know more about what we eat and the effect it has on our system, so that we can spend less and less on our hospital bills; these are the issues we are looking at.

“If for instance, you use plastic cups to drink your tea or you eat `moi-moi’ (a local beans pudding) made in cellophane or a plastic container put in a micro wave.

“When you eat that kind of food, you are exposing yourself to nearly 50 possibilities of poison.

The minister urged the citizens to use only non-toxic materials for preparing or packaging their cuisines.

Mr. Ogbeh also said the Federal Government is doing everything possible to achieve self-sufficiency in rice production before the end of 2018.

He said there were strong indications that Nigeria would become self-sufficient in rice production by 2018 because many farmers had rediscovered their potential in rice farming.

“First, let me congratulate Nigerians for responding positively to the made-in-Nigeria rice during the last Christmas period.

“Nigerians have discovered that Nigerian rice is better than rice from Thailand and Vietnam, which are the largest producers of rice in the world.

“We are in a rivalry with the two countries for now and we will soon overtake them in rice production and take over the market from them.

“People in Thailand do not eat parboiled rice but white rice. So, all the parboiled rice they produce is exported to Nigeria.

“Nigeria is the biggest consumer of imported rice in the world.

“By so doing, we are transferring our jobs to these two countries and leaving our teeming youths angry and hungry,” he said.

The minister, however, said that rice production in the country had improved appreciably, particularly in states like Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.

Mr. Ogbeh said that in the northwestern part of the country, Kebbi, Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Katsina and Zamfara states were taking due advantage of their dams by engaging in rice production as well.

The minister said that the Federal Government had just imported 110 rice mills, adding that the mills would soon be distributed to communities across the country.

Mr. Ogbeh said that the gesture was aimed at boosting the production and income of rice farmers, adding that some of the rice mills could mill 50 tonnes of rice per day.

“We are distributing the mills to communities, under a programme called `LIFE’, which entails taking industries to villages, because we don’t have the whole population in Abuja, Lagos, Enugu, Port Harcourt or Kano.

“We will satisfy our demand for rice. By so doing, we will be creating 20 million jobs in the villages and saving about five million dollars used for the importation of rice daily.

“Ironically, the recession in the country is not facing people in the villages. If you go to Kebbi now, there are millionaires made from rice, wheat and soya bean farming,’’ he added.

Besides, Mr. Ogbeh said, agricultural extension workers would soon teach the farmers about how to parboil rice, while setting a standard for the usage of good-quality rice seeds.

“The era of soaking rice in a tank and leaving it overnight is long overdue.

“Rice should not be soaked for more than three hours in water with a temperature of about 80 degrees centigrade.

“The rice should also be steamed for about 30 minutes and dried in a proper place to avoid stones,” he said.

The minister said that efforts were underway to acquire rice reaper machines, used for cutting and harvesting paddy.

He, however, noted that Nigeria was currently selling rice to Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Mali and Mauritania.

“All the same, we cannot stop them from buying our rice; we will rather expand our production,” he added.

 

Source: NAN

Ogbeh: Ebonyi farmers need help, they’re still harvesting rice by hand

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Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture, says rice farmers in Ebonyi state are still in the business of harvesting by hand and with sickle.

Speaking at the ongoing African Economic Conference in Abuja, Ogbeh said government would intensify support for local farmers, and sustain plans by Akinwumi Adesina, former minister of agriculture, to help local farmers via e-Wallet.

“There’s a need to intensify support, and one of the things we are trying to do now is to reform the bank of agriculture; the African Development Bank is already giving support in that line,” he said.

“We’ve got to build that bank to the level where we can lend money at single digit, as down south as possible to single digit as we can.”

Speaking of the rice farmers and the need to support them with simple machinery, Ogbeh narrated an experience he had with them.

“Over the years, we, in the cities, have never really understood what goes on at the farms. We don’t know the stress of a peasant farmer.

“I was in Ebonyi last week, massive rice production; they are harvesting by hand, using sickle. Imagine a hectare of rice, that is a football field being cut by a man and his wife, bending down all day and then beating the rice on a stick to get the seeds of the tusk.

“If that guy has two hectares, he may not finish harvesting till the raining season arrives. So we need harvesters, we need threshers, very simple machines.”

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) earlier said that Ebonyi rice farmers had outstripped the earmarked production for the year.

Ogbeh assured Nigerians that there would be no famine in Nigeria, emphasising that the federal government has a plan to combat any occurrence of food  shortage.

Nigerians May Starve To Death By 2050 – Minister

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The Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, yesterday, raised alarm that Nigerians would starve to death by 2050 if nothing was done to ensure an all year round farming.

 

He also said with the rate the country was going, the population would by 2050 rise to 509 million. According to the him, the present mode of farming will not sustain the increasing population in the country. He noted that there was the urgent need for all major stakeholders to work towards improving mechanized farming and irrigation, to ensure an all year farming to avert the problem.

 

Speaking, yesterday, during the budget defence of 2016, Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said the country had the capacity to grow the grass required by the cattle to consume.

 

“We have written to state governments to encourage them to develop dams and canals so that agriculture becomes an all year round activity and it is not confined to the rainy season alone. “Besides, by 2050, Nigeria population will be very close to 500 million at the current rate of growth. This is just 34 years from now. If we carry on at the current rate of one crop per year, with very low mechanization, Nigerians run the risk of starving to death.

 

“We intend to intensify and consolidate on the local staples, the yams, the cassava, the beans, especially rice and wheat. Both of which consume $11 million per day in import. The figure is going down a bit. We can’t afford that in the long run because we don’t even have the resources. “The ministry has put necessary machinery in motion to stop the constant bloody clashes between herdsmen and farmers. We have decided we are going to develop massive paddocks across the country.

 

 

“What the cows are looking for is grass and water. We have the capacity to grow the grass we want not just any kind of grass but highly nutritive grass for the cows to eat. If it can be done in Kenya, Saudi Arabia, there is no reason why we can’t do it here. ‘’There is sizable provision for grassing at hinterland, by developing water, drilling of boreholes and small dams to irrigate those areas already mapped out. In the process we hope that the cattle herdsmen would have a more stable life.”

 

Credit : Vanguard

It’s Too Late To Kick Saraki Out Of APC -Audu Ogbeh

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Former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party and a founding member of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who also played a key role in the merger of different opposition parties to form the All Progressives Congress has said he doesn’t have any regrets in regards to the current National Assembly crisis.

In a recent interview with Punch, Chief Ogbeh said,

“No, I have no regrets. It was a good thing to do. Without doing it, there was no way the opposition would make any impact on the political scene. In spite of the obvious embarrassment we are facing, it was a good thing to do. We will get over this.”

Asked should the APC hierarchy expel Senate President Bukola Saraki and co if they fail to toe party line, he said,

“It’s too late to do that. I think dialogue is the answer and I wish to God that that dialogue had taken place much earlier. Two, calling that meeting at 9:00am when voting (for leadership positions) was happening at 10:00am was a strategic error. I didn’t know who engineered it. It was a very tragic error. Three, I think a committee should have been set up long ago to get the process of reconciliation over with. The committee not involving the party leadership but elders from the party should meet both sides in the divide within the APC and sort the matter out because the longer it lasts, the more embarrassment we get, the more the public confidence in us shakes and the more difficulties we face in governance.”