The Federal Government of Nigeria on Tuesday restated its determination to transform the nation’s agricultural sector to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and by so doing, reduce poverty and hunger, attain food security and improve nutrition in the country.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, gave this hint at the opening ceremony of a three-day Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project conference in Abuja
Ogbeh gave assurance that the agricultural policy thrust of the present administration was committed to seeing agriculture run as a business, with plans in place to return the nation to an agro economy footing that was abandoned with the discovery of oil.
This is even as he noted that the country had achieved remarkable success in sesame seeds, cotton, sorghum, gum arabic, maize, yam, cassava and rice production.
He mentioned that a large number of the smallholder farmers form the extreme poor and as such, the Federal Government is putting in place a number of initiatives to tackle poverty and hunger through boosting agricultural productivity, food production and improve rural incomes.
Ogbeh listed some of the obstacles hampering the growth of the agricultural sector to include lack of utilization of science and technology in farming practices, unfriendly land policy, access to credits, lack of extension workers, poor soil testing facilities, unprofitable planting habits, and paucity of tractors for modernized farming.
He also pointed out that meaningful agricultural growth cannot be achieved with the prevailing interest rates and called for a reduction in lending credit rates by the commercial banks.
In his remarks, the United States Agency for International Department (USAID) Deputy Mission Director, Dr. Erin Holleran, said that the Feed the Future Programme was the United States Government’s global hunger and food security initiative implemented by USAID, which has offered support to many Nigerian initiatives.
The Feed the Future Agricultural Policy Project is designed to address policy research and capacity building, and to ensure that Nigerian institutions are equipped to respond effectively and in a timely manner to the increasing capacity, knowledge and information needs of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD).
The project is a five year $12.5million initiative. It is a joint effort between Michigan State University (MSU), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI’s) Nigeria Strategy Support Programme funded by USAID Nigeria.
