The Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has declared that making Nigeria assumes food security status, remains a cardinal focus of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration.
Bamidele said this accounted for why the federal government was investing hugely in agriculture to bring down the prices of food stuffs as well as banish hunger and poverty out of the country.
The Senate Leader made this known in Ado Ekiti, on Tuesday, while empowering some farmers with modern implements to buoy food production in the state.
Items distributed include one big tractor, 10 power tillers and cartons of liquid fertilizers.
The Senate Leader, represented by a prominent All Progressives Congress chieftain, Mr Remi Oguntuase, pledged continued support to the wellbeing of farmers, not only in his district, but across the state.
Bamidele said the empowerment was in tandem with the cardinal objectives of Tinubu’s administration and the Ekiti State government under Governor Biodun Oyebanji to make lives more abundant for the people.
“This gesture is to improve food production in Ekiti State. Improved food production will help in stamping out hunger and poverty among our people.
“The implements we are donating are modern ones, we need to improve our methods of production. We can’t continue to do things the old ways.
“I appreciate President Tinubu and Governor Oyebanji’s commitments to improving agriculture in Nigeria and Ekiti State through adequate support to our farmers.
“This is the line every level of government must follow because over 60% of our population depends on agriculture”.
Meanwhile, farmers have been told to ensure proper use of empowerment equipment to improve food production in the state.
The Ekiti state Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Ebenezer Boluwade, said judicious use of the equipment will justify the purpose for which they were meant for, which was to ensure increased food production in Ekiti.
The gesture according to the Commissioner, was to improve the farming methods through injection of commercial farming to the state.
The commissioner advised the farmers that regular servicing of the equipment will ensure they last long, urging them to embrace best practices to contribute to the state’s efforts towards food sufficiency.
