Reps Back Call For Establishment Of Farm Settlement Across Nigeria
Members of the House of Representatives have expressed their support to the call for the establishment of farm settlements in Federal Constituencies in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The members said that such facilities would accelerate the economic diversification programme of the federal government and also create jobs for the teeming unemployed youths in the country.
To this end, the House has passed for second reading a bill seeking to amend the national agricultural land development authority, 2004.
The intention of the amendment is to increase the membership and functions of the Authority for strategic operations and interests and to vest in the Authority the powers to establish farm settlements across the country for the purposes of attaining Food sufficiency.
The Bill if successfully amended would also facilitate the establishment of the National Farm Settlement and Youth Empowerment Agency to create a mechanized system of farming for the country.
Titled “a bill for an Act to Amend the National Agricultural Land Development Authority Act, 2004”, the proposed amendment is being sponsored by Evelyn Oboro, who is the member representing Opke/Sapele/Uvwie Federal Constituency of Delta State.
Speaking to Journalists on general principle of the bill and its intendment, Hon. Oboro there was a need to enact a law to further promote agro-entrepreneurship especially among young people and women.
She added that the establishment of farm settlements in the hinterlands of various constituencies would discourage rural-urban migration.
“We cannot attain food security, reduce poverty, create thousands of jobs like we desperately need to, neither can we earn much needed foreign exchange by continuing with the situation where our farmers sell poorly packaged food items at subsistence level.
“This law is well thought out and articulated, for it to be the legal frame work based on which the Federal Government can provide land and good infrastructure for farm settlements in Federal Constituencies.
“What we have right now are a few farmers and traders who sell products that hardly meet the standards in packaging along the highway. Also they make little profit”.
