Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday restated Federal Government’s commitment to providing food security to Nigerians.
Osinbajo who gave the reassurance at the High-Level Dialogue on Feeding Africa 2021 organized by the African Development Bank, AfDB, insisted that the future must involve making agriculture cool and attractive to attract young people.
According to Osinbajo, the Nigerian government, as parts of efforts to ensure food security and sustainability created an Agriculture For Food and Job Plan, Agriculture Transformation Agenda as well as Green Alternative.
He said the government has collaborated with several fintech companies and agro tech start up to enable easy access to loans, equipments and other accessories needed by farmers.
He added that over a million “farmers have so far been registered into the scheme which has about 8,000 local government wards and over 7,000 local government areas linked to the agro app”.
“6 million farmers have been linked to their farm lands and over 200 million more are to be properly linked. The budget for the Agriculture for food and job plan is $1.5bn,” he added.
On the agricultural transformation agenda, the vice president stated that it was aimed at transitioning farmers and herders from “primitive to modern ranching to settle crop farmers and cattle herders’ crisis”.
Osinbajo further added that the federal government would partner state governments, Islamic Bank of Nigeria, private institutions as well as the Netherlands and Brazil government to achieve its green alternative and agricultural transformation agenda.
Rwanda President Paul Kagame, added that the African continent must look within for solutions to the food security issues facing the continent.
“Solutions to the challenges are known and within our means. Agric business can be a pathway for African Families to escape poverty.
“Just like smartphones, we need to tap into partnership with private institutions to produce more food.
“As African countries we need to partner with each other, as it widens opportunities for better productions,” Kagame said.
