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| Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, Agric & Rural Development Minister |
Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the Minister
of Agriculture and Rural Development has described agriculture sector as the
fastest in terms of employment generation.
The Minister, NaijaAgroNet learnt, said this
in his remarks in Ekiti State at the Youth in Commercial Agribusiness
Development Programme recently.
He also applauded the state
governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi for involving the state's youth in agriculture.
"To unlock the potential of
agriculture to create jobs, we must engage the energy, dynamism and
entrepreneurship of the youth," Adesina said.
"We are no longer treating
agriculture as a development programme," the Minister asserted, adding
that the goal of the government is to treat agric as a business and to make the
nation an agriculturally industrialised economy.
He also made known the goal of the
Agricultural Transformation Agenda to add an additional 20 million tonnes of
food to the domestic food supply with the creation of 3.5 millions jobs in all
the agriculture value chains.
He remarked that subsistence
farming is not viable to feed a nation, pointing out that there is the need to
expand the level of use of tractors in the country, which could be done by
small, medium and large scale farmers.
In a bid to raise the level of use
of improved seeds, Adesina said that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Development financed the entire seed supply for the country which amounts
to N2.7 billion for the 2012 season.
The finance, he said is not from
the government but the use of guarantees for banks to lend to seed companies.
He also affirmed that the Federal Government was
able to secure financing for the supply of fertilizers for 2012, at the level
of N27 billion from commercial banks using guarantees from the Ministry of
Finance.
Yinka Awosanya/LS
... Linking agrobiz, people & technology
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