Senate Committee Chairman on Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Bima Mohammed Enagi, identified conflicts and archaic agricultural policies as the greatest challenges bedeviling food security on the continent of Africa.
He said; “Africa has two tractors per hectare while Latin America has ten per hectare. Nigeria has about 3,000 tractors while the required need is 750,000 tractors.
“Africa spends $35billion on food imports annually and Africa Development Bank, AfDB forecast shows that this may quadruple by 2050.”
According to him, Nigeria with its vast arable land and serene weather has no business with hunger if policy makers do the right thing.
Senator Enagi rue a situation where more than 70 percent of Nigerians engage in agriculture yet the country cannot meet its food need while only 14 percent in Ukraine and 2 percent in USA are engaged in agriculture who are major food exporters.
He suggested the following solutions, agricultural mechanization, biotechnology, among others across the entire agricultural value chain from seed development, planting, harvesting, packaging and sales as the permanent solution to the food shortages and hunger on the continent.
Enagi charged developing countries to emulate the advanced countries by scaling up the food solution policies to ensure that the capacity of farmers across the entire continent is enhanced.
Also speaking, the representative of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, maintained that the private sector is key to the actualization of the federal government agricultural policy and that is why the FCT administration is glad to partner with agro business and development, AGRICON.
He allayed the fears of would be investors on the security situation in the country, maintaining that adequate security provisions have been put in place through inter agency collaboration to ensure the safety of everyone in the FCT.
The permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Ernest Omakie who was represented by Mrs Lawal, highlighted the ten thematic areas of the federal government’s agricultural policy which includes: improve agricultural inputs,
synergy among stakeholders, agricultural extension, funding, marketing among others. He charged all stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and wealth in the agricultural sector.
In the same vein, the chairman of AGRICON, Hon Emeka Ebo noted that the conference and expo was to train women, youths and other stakeholders on how to minimize post harvest loses; emerging crops; increasing farm yields; agricultural export solutions among others.
The Texas Deputy Commissioner of Agriculture, Jason Fearneyhough, commended the organizers, he noted that the COVID pandemic has shown how fragile any system can working alone. “When we work hand in hand with Nigeria, we can help solve the food shortage in the country. I have with me, about four agricultural firms from Texas to share ideas with Nigerians and working together we will be better off” he said.
The conference with the theme, “unveiling and entrenching sustainable food solutions through mechanization and innovation” #EndHungerToday; is targeted at arriving at a concensus to end the scourge of hunger in Nigeria.
