Vice President Kashim Shettima has constituted a technical committee to expedite strategic interventions in agriculture, targeting wheat, other staple crops and livestock development, his office said in a statement dated October 20, 2026, published by Premium Times.
The committee was set up on Tuesday at a high-level meeting on agricultural sector performance at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The meeting followed a larger session the previous week with President Bola Tinubu and stakeholders from agriculture and other sectors. Shettima asked members to produce a blueprint for implementing the interventions.
Who Sits on the Committee
The committee is coordinated by Marion Moon, Technical Adviser to the Vice President on Agriculture and Head of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, the statement said.
Members are drawn from the Ministries of Agriculture and Food Security, Water Resources and Sanitation and Livestock Development, and from the Ministry of Finance Incorporated. The chief executives of the Bank of Industry, the Bank of Agriculture, the National Agricultural Land Development Authority, the National Agricultural Seeds Council, the National Agricultural Development Fund and the National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization also sit on it. So do the heads of the National Sugar Council of Nigeria, the Nigeria Commodities Exchange and the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure. Presidential aides on livestock reform, agribusiness, food security and livestock development complete the membership.
Wheat and Dry-Season Farming in Focus
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, said the meeting discussed the challenges facing farmers and ways to scale up wheat production and dry-season farming. "Mr President had always encouraged the all-year-around farming," he said, according to the statement.
Kyari described the body's role: "It is a technical committee with members from the various MDAs to sit and coordinate on behalf of all." He added that "The report of the technical committee will have to be subjected to another committee," with recommendations passing to the Vice President and then to the President.
Closing the Gap With States
Moon said agricultural development is a shared responsibility of the federal, state and local governments, and pointed to a disconnect between the three tiers. She said it was "very important to ensure that we are in harmony and synergy with what is happening at the state level."
The committee adds to recent federal moves on farm output. At a World Food Day event on October 16, 2026, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, said domestic wheat production had risen to about 420,000 metric tonnes a year, according to a ministry statement.
The statement gave no deadline for the committee's blueprint and named no budget for the interventions.
FoodPrices Nigeria tracks flour, grains and other staples across Lagos markets. Faster action on wheat and dry-season farming would show up there first in the prices of bread flour and grains that Lagos households buy each week.
Editor Notes (do not publish): The only source is the Vice President's office press release, as republished by Premium Times. I found no independent news report to cross-check it, but it is a primary government statement. The release says "Tuesday" without a date. Since it is dated October 20, 2026, which was a Tuesday, I described it only as Tuesday. The statement names Kyari but does not say he sits on the committee, so I did not say he does.