The Federal Government has set up an Agriculture and Water Resources Joint Action Committee to address the challenges of food security and inflation.

The Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, disclosed this at the National Youth Convention on Thursday in Abuja.

The convention was organised by the Nigerian Women for Agricultural Progressive and Development Initiative.

Abdullahi said the initiative was geared towards advancing the food security agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
He said the ministry had commenced the dry-seeding farming as the country would not be able to feed its more than 200 million people if it solely depended on a six-month training season for agriculture.

The partnership, according to him, is purposely to encourage all-year-round farming. He said that the country was blessed with abundant water resources and so many river-basin development authorities that should be harnessed for all-year-round farming in order to ensure food security and self-sufficiency.

Currently, the ministry is working with all the farmers in those areas and also working to make sure it remove the things that are constraining the farmers to utilise the opportunity in those areas.

The minister confirmed recent flooding in some states of the federation and identified the menace as part of the challenges of climate change.

According to him, the ministry’s response is to ensure that dry-season farming comes to stay because, under dry-season, one can control the water, control what one is planting and how one plants.

The minister said the Renewed Hope Agenda of the president was focusing on the future, adding that the future rightly belonged to the young generation.