In collaboration with the Federal Government, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations has chosen 13 states for intervention in relation to the production of a few specific crops, such as rice, sorghum, soybean, etc., and dairy.
Mahmood Abubakar, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, made this announcement during his remarks at the official opening of the National Steering Committee for the FAO Hand-in-Hand Initiative.
The choice of states for the intervention, according to the speaker’s speech, which was made available to our correspondent on Tuesday, was made on the basis of each state’s potential for import substitution, export promotion, comparative advantage, social inclusion, and demand gap on a national, continental, and global scale.
Abubakar said, “The Hand-in-Hand initiative take cognisance of the country’s economic advantaged and disadvantaged areas in selecting the priority commodities for intervention in selected states.
“The guiding variables are states with ‘potential’, (high market-oriented, where investments are more likely to have an impact in the short term); ‘unrealised potential’, (areas with a high unrealised potential, where impact are more likely to be higher); and ‘poverty,’ (high levels of poverty for urgent intervention).
“Specifically, the programme plan captures the following priority commodities – rice, sorghum, soybean, maize, fish, tomato, cassava and dairy.”