The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Sabo Nanono has assured that the impact of the Coronavirus disease will not lead to scarcity of fertiliser for farmers as the rains set in.
Nanono made this known when he appeared on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) flagship programme, NAN Forum in Abuja.
He said that though there were doubts that importation of fertiliser would be affected due to the disease, he has however assured that there were enough locally produced fertilisers to serve farmers as fertiliser companies, which were already springing up across the country, producing organic fertiliser and other varieties, could conveniently meet the needs of farmers.
According to him, “There is no doubt that the coronavirus disease will impact import and export of goods and services. We import some essential items like agricultural equipment, consumables like milk and wheat as well as inputs like chemicals and fertilisers and they will definitely be affected in this regard. In terms of fertiliser, there are companies in some parts of the country and more are coming up. For instance, we have two factories in Kaduna, some in Lagos and a host of other states and we can use those ones as substitute for the time being.
Going on, “We also have local production of urea which is the main components of NPK. We have Notore and it is producing very good fertiliser. We have Indorama and now Dangote is going to commission its fertiliser company. So with all these, we will not be in a very dire situation in terms of fertiliser. It may be a bit expensive but I think we should be able to manage it,” he said.
On provision of subsidy to cut down cost, the minister said the Federal Government had been subsidising fertiliser, assuring that it would continue to do that and in view of this new development, government will probably try to see how best it can reduce the impact on farmers.”
Nanono pointed out that the latest development would afford Nigeria the opportunity to look inward to boost the production of fertiliser.
