Development partners commit $500m to agriculture sector - FG


The Federal Government said on Thursday that E.U., U.K., Japan, France, Germany and U.S. had committed about $500 million to the nation`s agricultural production from 2013 to 2016.
Malam Shehu Ahmed, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, stated this in Abuja on Thursday at the workshop on ``Public Validation of the Progress Report on the New Alliance and Grow Africa Agreements. ``
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the permanent secretary was represented by Mrs Olubunmi Siyanbola, Director, Planning and Policy Coordination in the ministry.
``Key development partners like E.U., U.K., Japan, France, Germany and U.S. are committed to about US$ 500 million for Nigeria’s agriculture sector in the 2013 to 2016 period.
``International and local business establishments firms are committed to make investments of about U.S. $4 billion in the agricultural sector.
``It is expected that through this partnership more private investment will be seen in the sector as the government implements the 13 policy actions to improve the environment for investment, `` he said.
NAN reports that the New Alliance is a partnership agreement among the Federal Government, private sector and development partners, on targeted actions needed to promote agricultural investment, food and nutrition security in Nigeria.
He explained that in Nigeria’s new alliance agreement, the government was committed to 13 major policy actions in the areas of seed and fertiliser, Bank of Agriculture, nutrition, commodity exchange, power availability among others.
Ahmed added that to assess progress, an annual report on the level of implementation of stakeholders’ commitments was produced at the national level and at the continental level.
``We are gathered here to review the progress made so far under the New Alliance cooperative framework in other to produce a final document, which will be submitted to the African Union Commission.
``I implore you to actively participate in the validation process so as to achieve the objective of the workshop, `` he said.
In his speech, Mr Segun Falade, representing the private sector, said the AgroAfrica and New Alliance were targeted towards empowering the private sector and making the nation`s agricultural sector more enterprising.
``All that we have seen from 2012 upward, there is a lot of improvement in the investors that have been coming into agriculture sector.
``There are lots of economists that have been coming in.
``However, the Nigeria agribusiness group, which was inaugurated by a former minister in 2014, has been in the lead to drive the private sector to the government sector.
``The agribusiness will be presenting to the President a roadmap in collaboration with Ministry of Agriculture on how they want agribusiness to continue to flourish in the country, `` he said.
Mr Abdulazeez Musa, who spoke for Non-State Actor said, ``what we are trying to look at in the New Alliance is nutrition and the nutrition comes from little farming we do with varieties.
``We need to have marketing approach and private sector investment is critical if we really want to improve the agricultural sector.
``We must also ensure that we have business model that are really beneficial to the private sector and the smallholder farmers, `` he said. 

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