Nigeria to ban importation of milk, fish-Minister

Nigeria will soon ban the importation of milk and fish into the country.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Muhammad Sabo Nanono stated this in Abuja on Friday in his office.

The Minister said Nigeria has thirty trillion Naira livestock endowment, with the abundant resource of over twenty million heads of cattle and a daily consumption requirement of five million litres of milk.

This was contained in a statement issued on Saturday by Technical Assistant to the Minister on Media, Ahmed Aminu and sent to Solacebase.

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‘’With this, we have no reason to be importing milk into the country. All is required is to milk five million cows per day to meet the country’s current consumption pattern,’’ said the statement.

The statement said the Minister contends that Nigeria must properly tap into this enormous resource to conserve the much needed foreign exchange.

‘’Alhaji Sabo, with the new impetus given to fishing and aqua culture coupled with the enormous water resources endowment, Nigeria can more than produce the quantity of fish needed to satiate the requirement of its citizens.

According to the statement, on agriculture and food security, Minister Nanono maintains that the abundant land and water resources abounding in Nigeria are more than capable of producing enough food for ourselves and also export to our sister nations in Africa.

Alhaji Sabo said with thirty to forty million farmers in the country coupled with abundant fertile and cultivable lands as well as favourable climatic condition, Nigerians can now grow anything tropical in the country.

‘’The emergence of the COVID- 19 Pandemic, according to the Minister reinforced the potential of agriculture in Nigeria. This is because, with the recession occasioned by the pandemic arising from a drastic fall in oil prices, Nigeria could not have afforded to import anything even if we wanted to.

It is thus a blessing that the Agricultural policy of producing our own food, especially rice has been value added.