Speaking during the flag-off of the 2015 dry season wheat and rice farming in Kura, Kano State, on Tuesday 24th, 2015, the Executive Governor of Kano State, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje said that agriculture should now be treated as a business, and not just a means for managing poverty.

“We urgently need an approach to improve agricultural production, with sound agricultural policies to back it up,” he said, promising to help farmers improve productivity, and adding that the state is trying to transform agriculture into viable economic activities.

He also announced that the state’s wheat farming programme has registered 18,200 farmers as part of the attention given to it by the government.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, during the event decried the huge sum of money spent on food importation, faulting the N1.3 trillion annually expended on the importation of assorted food commodities into the country.

Dr. Gbenga Olabanji, Executive Director of Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI) having the national mandate for the genetic development of wheat, noted that Nigeria has the potential for wheat production, and is able to produce wheat yielding 8 tons per hectare. He added that Nigeria has 600,000 hectares of land that is good for wheat production