The Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Joseph Utsev, has reaffirmed the commitment of President Bola Tinubu’s administration to achieving food sufficiency in Nigeria.
During an assessment tour of the solarisation of the Pivot Irrigation Unit of the Middle Ogun Irrigation Project in Iseyin, Oyo State, Utsev stated, “The mandate of food production, creating jobs, and enhancing the country’s economy is in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of the president.”
Utsev emphasized the Federal Government’s dedication to providing necessary facilities to boost food productivity, highlighting the ongoing solarisation of the Middle Ogun Irrigation Unit and its connection to the national electric power grid as key efforts to promote irrigation farming.
“The Middle Ogun Irrigation project started in 1990, and the aim of the project was to put about 12,000 hectares of land into production,” Utsev explained. “When the project started, it was to use diesel for its power generating plants, but now we are changing the diesel method of powering our irrigation facilities to solar and the national grid power because of the high cost of diesel and other reasons.”
The minister reported that the connection to the national grid had reached 95% completion, while the solarisation project had attained 85% completion.
Alhaji Dauda Ademola, Chairman of the Middle Ogun Irrigation Project Farmers Association, expressed gratitude to the federal government for the ongoing projects and urged them to ensure speedy completion of the projects and other facilities to enhance irrigation farming.