A strategy to ensure that the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic on this year’s farming season is minimised is being worked out. Indication to this emerged penultimate week when President Muhammadu Buhari, as part of the government’s response, directed the setting up of an ad-hoc committee “to ensure the impact of this pandemic on our 2020 farming season is minimised.”
To make this happen, the president, who conveyed this response via his April 13 address announcing the extension of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, directed the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, the National Security Adviser, the Vice Chairman, National Food Security Council and the Chairman, Presidential Fertiliser Initiative to work with the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.

Buhari also went a notch higher, informing Nigerians that to ensure the economy adapts to the new reality forced by the pandemic, the Ministers of Industry, Trade and Investment, Communication and Digital Economy, Science and Technology, Transportation, Aviation, Interior, Health, Works and Housing, Labour and Employment and Education have been directed to develop a comprehensive policy for a “Nigerian economy functioning with Covid-19”.