“Nigeria’s 56% of Agricultural land is not in use”

The Federal Government said on Thursday that a lot of opportunities abound in the agricultural sector as over 56 percent of available agricultural land was still not in use.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Mohammad Abubakar, stated this in Jos on Thursday while addressing participants at the ongoing 45th regular meeting of the National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development.

According to the Minister, “Nigeria is endowed with a total of 79million hectares of agricultural land with only 44% being cultivated. The nation also has 267 billion cubic meters of fresh surface water and 58 billion cubic meters of underground water, with 37 billion cubic meters only stored in dams. Annual rainfall in the country is within 300mm to 4,000mm. Conversely, the potential irrigable area is about 3.14 million hectares with less than 7% utilized presently.”

The Minister, however, said that the government was doing all it could to encourage agriculture, having trained 153,124 women and youths on crop, fishery, and livestock value chains and empowered 142,703. He said the government had also trained 214,787 farmers in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and 220,018 farmers in Farmer Business School.