Dr. Tunde Arosanyin, the National Coordinator, Zero Hunger Community Association of Nigeria, has urged the Federal Government to key into the initiative of the association to attain food sufficiency in the country.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday, Arosanyin explained that this would help end the increasing hunger in the country.
He said there was a need for the government to key into some of the private initiatives and programmes created to ensure food security and sufficiency in the country.
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“ I want the minister to look at the programme on the zero hunger desk in the ministry and interface with the overall chairman, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to know where the federal government could benefit.
”So that they can scale up to perform their responsibility.
“ I believe if we really look at some of the per-vote of the United Nations especially in food production it will go a long way to create employment,
” It will reduce hunger, it will guarantee food security, and it will develop raw materials for our industries and altogether Nigeria will be more secured.
” If we provide food and work for ourselves there will be no need for Nigerians running out for white-collar jobs in other countries as the case on the ground is alarming.” he said
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Arosanyin said Nigeria had not attained food security because the country was slow in embracing the use of technology for production.
“ If we want to get a level of food self-sufficiency we need to mechanize our agriculture and use modern-day farming technology.
“ General agriculture is critical to the development of agriculture where everything is mechanised from planting to harvesting and processing and we are not yet there.“
According to him, we are trying to scale up now as from 2020 to develop a robust programme where even some of this companies can make use of some of these farmers that we have trained as out-growers,
“ It means the company will provide funds for the farmers, they will provide inputs even transport services and if they invest their money and of course they will be on the ground to monitor,” he said
NAN reports that the Zero Hunger programme was an initiative of the United Nation to help eradicate hunger and create means of livelihood.
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