Agric Ministry distributes motorcycles to extension agents

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, on Saturday, distributed 370 motorcycles to extension agents to further enhance service delivery to Nigerian farmers.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the motorcycles were given to the agents as soft loan at 50 per cent discount.
NAN also reports that the minister, Audu Ogbeh, had earlier commissioned a “National Farmer Help Line Centre,” meant to provide a linkage between extension workers and farmers across Nigeria.
Ogbeh, during the distribution exercise at the National Agricultural Extension Research and Liaisons Services, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, said the motorcycles were to improve efficiency.
“It is a great privilege for me to launch and flag off the distribution of these motorcycles to the frontline agricultural extension workers in the Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs) in various states.
“It has become imperative and, indeed, compelling for Nigeria to diversify its economy, having been virtually dependent on petroleum for four decades.
“The country has realised that the most apparent sector to achieve this is the agriculture sector, which presents the greatest potential for sustainable economic development for her, in terms of resource-based approach to growth,” he said.
Ogbeh said that the country must, therefore, transit from oil-dependency to a more diversified economy, as the domestic economy was always susceptible to external revenue shocks when oil prices fall.
According to him, that informed the economic diversification from oil as a depleting asset, since the country is very richly-endowed with abundant natural assets for it to concentrate on tapping just one.