Farmers call on FG to ban maize importation

Farmers Group and Cooperative Society, have implored the Federal Government to ban the importation of maize into the country.

In an interview with News Agency of Nigeria, the National Coordinator, Redson Tedheke, said the suspending the importation of maize would protect local farmers and encourage production in large quantity in the country.

According to him, unchecked importation of maize remains a major threat to local production and President Muhammadu Buhari’s agricultural revolution drive.

“The Federal Government must set an immediate time scale to ensure that maize is not imported within months, like was done with rice.

“You cannot tell people to go to farm and then allow massive importation of the same thing they are conveniently producing. We feel that is insincerity of purpose, and we are telling the government that if you allow continuous importation of maize, you are actually working against those you urge to go to the farm. The Nigeria farmers group, have 2,000 hectares of maize farm across the nation, and it is still cultivating more,” he said.

Tedheke noted that some Agro-business firms operating in Nigeria were importing large quantities of maize at relatively “low landing cost.” He also said noted that though maize was not currently on Nigeria’s import prohibition list, there was need to check excessive importation to protect local producers in their quest to grow the economy from within.

“The current price of locally produced maize is between N130, 000 and N250, 000 per tonne. If the Federal Government does not act fast, the localisation of maize production will be lost to importers who may kill local producers, jobs and the economy.

NAN reports that the group is a rural community based farming initiative with farms spread across Nigeria and its mission is `Farm to Feed Nigeria’ and create jobs in the process