Federal Government Creates Agro Rangers Corps to Protect Farms.

The Federal Government creates Agro rangers corps to protect farms. The federal government has begun the training of 3,000 personnel under its Agro Rangers programme designed to protect farmers and their investments from attacks by criminals, especially kidnappers. The Agro Rangers unit, an initiative of the minister of agriculture and rural development, Audu Ogbe and his interior counterpart, Abdurahman Dambazau, is a unit under the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). The strategy is expected to forestall attacks on farms and boost farmers’ confidence to work on their farms without fear of attack, thereby guaranteeing the federal government’s avowed food security plans. Nigeria has witnessed an escalation of deadly clashes between farmers and herdsmen in parts of Benue, Taraba, Plateau, Niger, Nasarawa and Kaduna, among others, in the last three years. The attacks resulted in loss of lives and farm investments worth billions of naira, thus threatening the country’s drive towards food security. This is in addition to rising cases of cattle rustling and kidnapping. The establishment of the Agro Rangers unit followed the recommendations of a committee headed by the director, Joint Services, in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Noah Auta, which was inaugurated mid-2016, to deliberate on the operational modalities of the special unit and submit recommendations.continue