FG will buy no fertilizer from 2009

25.05.2008

THE Federal Government will no longer be directly involved in fertilizer procurement, beginning from next year, the Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, Dr. Sayyadi Abba Ruma has announced.

At an interactive session with the Senate ad-hoc committee on agriculture, the minister said government policy from next year is zero procurement of fertilizer. “From next year, the Federal Government will not be involved in fertilizer procurement.

“We will rather deploy the subsidy on fertilizer directly to the farmers, to enable them buy all necessary inputs, including improved seedlings, chemicals and fertilizer”, the minister said.

This year, the Federal Government is contributing N16 billion to subsidize 65,000 metric tonnes of fertilizer. The state governments is paying the balance of the cost, based on their requests. The states are expected to further subsidize the cost to make fertilizer affordable to the farmers. Distribution logistics is also borne by the states after delivery by the contractors to all the senatorial districts.

Answering a question from Senator Gbenga Babalola, representing Oke Ogun in Oyo State, the minister said the three contractors engaged this year had so far supplied over 75 per cent of the required quantity to various parts of the country. He said reports given to the ministry indicated that they were handicapped by an eighth-day strike by truck drivers in Lagos State, the logistics of difficult roads and creation of multiple delivery centres in some states.

Ruma told the Senate that subsidies from the federal government would henceforth go directly to the farmers. This year, he said, government would spend one billion naira as subsidy on improved seeds, provide N10 billion as credit to local rice farmers for rice processing and complete the on-going storage projects to boost strategic food reserve by 100 per cent.