By Idu Jude
The Minister of Agriculture and rural development, Alhaji Mahmood Mohammed, has again called on agro investors to embrace Federal Government agro-pressure policy for economic diversification.

The Minister, made this call Thursday in Abuja while commemorating this year’s edition of World food day being a pioneer by the Food And Agriculture Organisation arm of the United Nations.

According to the Minister, Agriculture has a long-standing role in Nigeria’s economy with 70% of the population is engaged in the sector. He stated that a recent survey by the National Bureau for Statistics (NBS) indicates that the agricultural sector contributed 23.78% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), thus topping seven other sectors with the most contribution.

He further indicated that the sector has the potential to be a key driver of growth, job, and wealth creation given the country’s viable agro-ecological zones, youthful population, and agro-industrial linkages, and to lift a sizeable number of the population out of poverty. The 5.01% of the 2nd quarter, 2021 GDP increase was possible due to the investments in food processing and manufacturing.

“It is on record that Government economic diversification policy to agriculture, as an alternative to oil and gas, and the investment of agro-pressures projected Nigeria to become the largest producer of rice in Africa from 2019, the first in Cassava and Yam production globally. It also ranked the 14th in Maize production and 4th in Palm oil. Now we have notable domestic brands in rice that are competing with foreign international brands.

The expectations we have in agriculture to take Nigeria to the promised land could only be achieved when our entrepreneurs take deliberate actions to invest in different value chains. The potentials across crops, livestock, horticulture, and fisheries sub-sectors are enormous. Therefore, it is the ingenuity of entrepreneurs like some of you here that would add value to our products and guarantee the revenue generation potentials of the sector”

While welcoming participants in this year’s occasion among who are selected Resource persons and Agro-printers, said that bringing stakeholders at a roundtable discussion is possible to share success stories and mentorship, in celebration of the 2021 World Food Day.

Mohammed further said that World Food Day is celebrated annually by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and other development partners and stakeholders on the 16th of October. The celebration happens in over 150 countries around the world.

“This year’s celebration marked the 41st edition of the World Food Day in Nigeria, as well as marking the 76th anniversary of the founding of the FAO and the 61st anniversary of Nigeria’s Independence as a Sovereign Nation.

The theme for the 2021 World Food Day (WFD) is -“Our Actions are our Future. Better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life”.

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The objective of the celebration is to promote worldwide effective action to end hunger, malnutrition, and poverty and ensuring that everyone at all times and place have physical and economic access to nutritious food.
Ladies and gentlemen, this roundtable discussion is an innovation in the way we celebrate World Food Day. We deliberately decided to organize this discussion to share our success stories, elicit interest and mentor the interested persons”

While reiterating efforts of collaborators as well as agro-investors, revealed that with the concerted effort of Agro-pressure that his administration is, however, optimistic that the contribution of agriculture to the Nigerian economy will increase exponentially from 23% to over 50% in the next 10years. And that is how we will actualize the vision of President Buhari of lifting 100million Nigerians out of poverty in 10years.

He noted that success stories from Nigerian investors would therefore serve as motivation to teaming youth, who are the future of Nigeria, to see agriculture as a promising sector they could build a successful career.
It is the involvement of entrepreneurs like you that would provide innovative solutions to the immense challenges in the sector.