The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has revealed that some western countries have allegedly employed strategies to sabotage Nigeria’s wheat production. The ministry alleged that the western countries are playing politics with wheat production in order to block Nigeria from being self-sufficient in the production of the crop. One of the strategies used by the Western countries, according to the Director, Federal Department of Agriculture of the ministry, Hajiya Karima Babangida, was labeling Nigeria’s wheat as poisonous.
Mrs Babangida, represented by Naphtali D. Telta, National Wheat Value Chain Desk Officer at a Capacity Building for Wheat Farmers on Good Agricultural Practices for Wheat Storage, held in Kano yesterday, said the countries labeled Nigeria’s wheat as poisonous because it contains gluten.
She said “if wheat was poisonous, it would have finished with the European race, it would have finished with the Arab race it would have also finished with the Israeli race because their food depends on wheat,” she said. In his remarks, the National President of Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria, Alhaji Salim Saleh Muhammad, attributed the challenges of wheat farming in the country to the failure of government to fund the farmers. He also said that the federal government does not support the farmers with seed varieties and loan facilities, lamenting that the production of wheat is dropping annually in the country.
