The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) has commenced its “Aggressive Food Production” project in eight communities in the Shendam Local Government Area of Plateau State. The projects include the cultivation of 200 hectares of maize for the 2022 wet season and drilling of five solar-powered boreholes for dry season farming. The communities had earlier donated a total of 618 hectares for the project while the authority is commencing the first phase of production on 200 hectares. The Executive Secretary of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne, during a visit to the communities, explained that the initiative was part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s effort at scaling up aggressive domestic food production.
Prince Ikonne said this intervention was necessary to avert the impact of the Russia/Ukraine war on the country’s food system because of import reliance. He further said that NALDA was encouraging farmers with the support of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to aggressively produce food by meeting them at their point of need in their localities. He assured beneficiaries of market availability because NALDA would be off-taking from them during harvest. During the visit, NALDA distributed seeds, herbicides, pesticides and fertilisers to about 600 farmers under the project, as the agency is also building goat pens and a veterinary clinic at a central location for the communities.
