The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari has announced the investment of $1 billion to provide mechanisation in all the states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Kyari stated this at a meeting of the Committee members for the implementation of the greener hope National agricultural mechanisation programme for food security and economic development.

“The programme was conceived by Messrs. Origin Nigeria Ltd with input from the Ministry and approved by the Federal Executive Council at its meeting on 25th June, 2024, with a view to promoting agricultural mechanization and ensuring food sufficiency in the country.

“The Programme is in line with Mr. President’s Executive order of Declaring State of Emergency on Food Security, that target of cultivating 500,000 hectares of arable land, promoting technologies, enhancing Agro-industrialization, and encouraging youth’s participation in agriculture, towards attaining food security, job and in wealth creation

“The programme is about the development of Model Agricultural Mechanization Service Centres and hubs in designated farming clusters across Food production in the 37 locations.

“It is a structured and systematic delivery of assorted equipment to the targeted centres across the country, as well as capacity building for 5,000 participants in precision training, mechanization, and agribusiness.

“Messrs. Origin Tech Nigeria Limited through its subsidiary, Origin Automobile Work, is into production assembly of mechanization equipment manufacturing and advisory services, with annual installed capacity for 10,000 tractors production line.

“They intend to set up an automobile tractor manufacturing plant to produce 5,000 tractors annually, as well as 1,000 mechanization equipment enterprise centres nationwide. The company would source technical partnership from South Korea, Taiwan and Brazil”, the Minister said.

He said “for implementation purposes, the Greener Hope National Agricultural Productivity and Large Scale Mechanization Support Programme would have the provision of 1 Billion US dollar facility from private sector financing, a 20% upfront counterpart fund of 200 Million US Dollars, and the related incentives and support. The execution of the programmewill be along the roles and responsibilities of the relevant Ministries, Offices and Bodies.

“In specific, the State Governments and the FCTA are targeted to invest in the agricultural mechanization service centres and large-scale food production hubs (farm estates) in designated farming clusters nationwide. Desired is 150,000 hectares at 25,000 hectares per each of the six geo-politicalzones, with 10,000 hectares for anchor States and a minimum of 2,000 hectares for other participating states.

“The project facility will be repaid over a period of 10 years by the participating States/FCT through their receipt of incomes and earnings from the operations of the planned farm estates and mechanization services to large and medium farms in their geo-political zones. The participating states will pay the Federal Government, which will repay the private financiers”.

During a courtesy visit to the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, the Chairman, Origin Tech Group, Prince Samuel Joseph Samuel, gave a detailed presentation on the overview of the programme highlighting the 3 essential pillars that will drive the implementation phase.

The first pillar covers machinery and equipment supply, while the other 2 pillars (capacity building and farm production) will come under technical assistance.

He explained the governance structure for the programme, the responsibility matrix and the delivery timelines. Samuel sought for a robust interaction among all stakeholders and assured that the implementation will be made flexible based on need assessment and concurrence by the end users of the plant and machinery.

He underscored the importance of inaugurating the steering committee and the three sub-committees of finance, technical and security to guarantee a seamless implementation exercise.

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