Joint Technical Task Team On Movement Of Food And Agric Inputs Inaugurated In Ogun

ABEOKUTA: Ogun State Joint Technical Task Team on movement of food and agricultural inputs have been told to be proactive in resolving issues related to making food available to the populace from the farms.

The state coordinator of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Ganiyu Oseni gave the advice at Eleweran, Abeokuta state headquarters of the Nigeria Police, during the inauguration of the committee.

The state coordinator said the task team was set up to mitigate the negative impact of the COVID-19 on the agricultural sector.

Mr. Oseni hinted that the committee was to ensure the removal of bottlenecks encountered by farmers in moving their agricultural products, including inputs from one location to the other considering the increased check points occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The committee named the Joint Task Team On Emergency Response to COVID 19 on challenges of Movement Of Food And Agricultural Inputs in the country has the representative of the Nigeria Police as the chairman, and members drawn from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence corp, All Farmers Association, National Union of Road Transport Workers and the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, while the representative of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is to serve as the Secretary.

The Joint Technical Task Team has four terms of reference, including issuance of clear instructions to all security personnel and propagation of adequate information clarifying the controlled movement of food stuff, livestock and agricultural inputs to achieve food sufficiency during the ongoing fight against COVID-19 pandemic and afterwards.