The federal government is to reduce the cost of a bag of fertiliser to less than N6,000, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has said even as he assured that the cassava bread initiative of the previous administration would be revived.

Ogbeh gave the assurance when he appeared on News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.

He said that Nigeria and Morocco have signed an agreement for Morocco to supply fertiliser to Nigeria.

“We’ve just signed an agreement with Morocco, the President and a few of us went to Morocco and had a good agreement for phosphate imports.’’

Morocco has the largest deposit of phosphate in the world, he said.

“The fertiliser we are getting from Morocco, we will put fertiliser on the market now for less than N6,000.

“But we are also insisting that there will be blenders in every part of the country so that the cost of transportation doesn’t compromise the integrity of this programme.

At N6,000, he said , the farmers were not complaining because they were now making quite some money.

The government, he said, was going to embark on providing extension offices in every local government area, a new scheme that would ensure effective distribution of fertiliser and other provide agriculture education.

“The offices would be depot for inputs and also an office for scientists who help the farmer when the farmer has problems.’’

The minister, however, assured the farmers of early distribution of fertilisers, particularly for those who would engage in this year’s dry season farming.

Meantime, the Federal Government says it will revive the cassava bread initiative introduced by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

Chief Ogbeh said the move was to effectively utilise cassava in food production and processing.

Former President Jonathan in 2012 launched the cassava bread, which was made from composite flour containing 40 per cent cassava and 60 per cent wheat.

Ogbeh expressed regrets that although Nigeria was the largest producer of cassava in the world, the economic and industrial potential of the crop had yet to be fully explored and utilised.

He said that the revival of the cassava bread initiative would help reduce importation of wheat, as different proportions of cassava and wheat would be combined to produce the composite flour used for baking bread.

He said that the venture would save a lot of foreign exchange, hitherto used in importing wheat, for Nigeria, while encouraging cassava farmers to increase their productivity.

“The use to which we have put cassava has been very low. We haven’t produced industrial starch even though we are trying to revive textiles, we haven’t done ethanol, we are importing ethanol.

“We haven’t exported cassava chips because of the cost of transportation from the hinterland to the ports.

`We haven’t done syrup which is used in the brewery industry, even industrial brews, the peels for feeding livestock, the leaves for feeding livestock; we haven’t done much.

“The bread one is still coming up. There is something you must add to bread if you use the cassava flour called bake shop.

“There is a Nigerian who wants to come and set up the factory here. You add that so that the bread can rise; that is what we are waiting for, it will be done.’’

Ogbeh said that the Federal Government was also working to get flour millers to add 15 per cent cassava in the wheat they milled.

On farmers/herdsmen clashes in the country, the minister said that the military was currently training no fewer than 3,000 agro-rangers to protect the farmers.

(NAN)

File Photo: Indorama fertilizer