Nigeria a generation away from agricultural extinction –Minister

Photo: Dr. Akinwumi Adesina

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has expressed fears that agriculture may soon go extinct in Nigeria unless urgent measures are taken to revive cross-cutting interest in the sector.
In an articulation from proceedings at the **The Economist** Summit held last week in Lagos by his Special Assistant, Media and Strategy, Dr. Olukayode Oyeleye, and made available to **Daily Independent,**the minister said the warning requires urgent solution if the nation “will be sustainably fed in the future.”
He spoke of the need to make agriculture doubly sustainable in Nigeria, hence the need to focus on the youth, the reason he continued, behind the Youth Employment in Agriculture Programme, established by the federal government as a response “to generational challenge in agriculture.”
Adesina noted that Nigeria is already making haste to tap into the nation’s agric potential, noting that the country is earned $426 from a single shipment of cassava chips to China in 2012.
He also disclosed that $40 million investment is going into the production of 15 per cent of all rice needed in Nigeria, in a Taraba State-based farm enterprise, run by Dominion Rice Farm.
Lamenting the irony about the nation’s agric potential, the minister said “Nigeria is the second largest producer of citrus fruits in the world, after China. But Nigeria is the largest importer of fruit concentrates.”
He also highlighted opportunities to export meat, drawing attention to “halal-certified” meat processing in beef, to be made popular shortly “to take advantage of the growing population needs and markets beyond Nigeria.”
Continuing, he said development finance institutions are putting their money into agriculture as well, through the development of the agro-industry through external funding support.
He unfolded the plans of KFW, a German development bank, to support agricultural financing in Nigeria with 21 million euro to develop agricultural through long-term financing, beginning from July 2013.
He also disclosed that “more than a dozen of high-level investors have signed MoU with the federal ministry of agriculture since January 2013.”
Organised by The Economist of London, a world renown news and policy magazine, the two-day conference spotlighted the hidden potentials that Nigeria needs to exploit at this time to boost its economy.