The Federal Government has reportedly released about N43.92 billion (122 million dollars) to 300,000 rice farmers to increase Nigeria’s rice production by additional two million tonnes in 2018. The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Aisha Al-Hassan stated this on Tuesday in New York at Nigeria’s side event during the ongoing 62nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW),
with the theme “Achieving Economic Empowerment: Addressing women peace and security issues as a pathway for socioeconomic Independence for rural women in Nigeria”.
“The Agricultural Transformation Agenda is aimed at strengthening the agricultural value chain, achieving a hunger-free nation, accelerating food and nutritional security, generating employment and growing wealth for millions of farmers.
The current Anchor Borrowers Programme of the Federal Government has released over 122 million dollars to farmers through 13 participating institutions. This is to spur the production of additional two million tonnes of rice in 2018 by 300,000 Rice Farmers, majority of whom are women in rural areas”.
The Minister further disclosed that the government was ensuring the implementation of the Conditional Cash Transfer scheme, aimed at providing one million poor and vulnerable households with N5,000 monthly cash transfers to the “care givers of households”.
“As at December 2017, over 622,649 identified poor and vulnerable households have been enlisted in the programme, with over 439,859 captured in the National Social Register from 233 Local Government Areas across 23 States.
“Of these figures, 293,973 caregivers from 9,567 communities have been paid, with over 25,000 beneficiaries already accessing requisite skills through trained community facilitators.
“The Home Grown School Feeding programme, also part of the social investment programme is designed to provide one nutritious meal a day to 5.5 million school children, including girls in classes one to three of public primary schools is progressing.
“By December 2017, over six million pupils are being fed daily nationwide. The programme has trickled down financial incentives to local farmers and cooks, who are mostly women,” she added.
