The huge deficiency in rural access
roads had been described as the bane of post- harvest loss in agriculture in
Nigeria, NaijaAgroNet reports.
This
was the nexus drawn by the Minister of
Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina who was represented
by the Director of Rural Development, Azeez Muyiwa at the recent launch of
second Rural Access and Mobility Project RAMP -2 in Abuja, stressing that
this has resulted in low farm gate prices which is put at about 20 per cent
annually.
He
said that the country’s focus to treat agriculture as a business would not be
achieved unless intensive efforts were made to tackle issues such as access and
mobility, particularly the link between the urban and rural areas where
majority of the population who are mostly farmers reside.
In
order for the full benefits of the agricultural transformation agenda to be
realised, he said the ministry in collaboration with the World Bank developed a
rural travel and transport policy as one of its intervention strategies to
addressing the inadequacy and deteriorating state of rural transport
infrastructure in the country.
The World Bank Country Representative, Marie
Francoise Marie-Nelly, said agriculture as the backbone of Nigeria’s rural
economy could be accelerated by improving roads that are essential to increased
productivity in agriculture, access to health as well as education for the
rural communities.
The Country Director of French
Development Agency, Hubert Dognin, said that special emphasis need to be placed on the sustainability of the road
investments through adequate maintenance in partnership with the states in
Nigeria.
NaijaAgroNet gathered
that the RAMP-2 that is set to aid access and mobility between the urban and
rural areas will close in December 2018.
pix: Minister of Agriculture & Rural Dev. Dr Akinwumi Adesina
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