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Showing posts with label Dr Akinwumi Adesina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr Akinwumi Adesina. Show all posts

Friday, October 23, 2015

Access to food, a fundamental right says Adeshina




NaijaAgroNet:
The president of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina has stated that access to food in quantity and quality is a fundamental human right, NaijaAgroNet reports.

He emphasised the importance of agriculture and food security to the growth and development of Africa. “People eat food. Access to food in quantity and quality is a fundamental human right. Just few weeks ago at the United Nations General Assembly, the world took a bold decision to approve the Sustainable Development Goals. In my meeting with the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, he told me: ‘The SDGs must succeed in Africa. If they do not succeed there, they cannot be said to have succeeded’.

Adeshina, NaijaAgroNet  gathered, was speaking at a high level conference on agricultural transformation themed ‘Feeding Africa.’ He said nothing is more important than food, adding that while Africa had risen on the back of new discoveries of oil and gas fields, in reality, no one eats oil or gas.

“The other side of the trajectory, which we must face, is that the growth process is highly unequal. Africa has today, one of the highest inequalities in the world. Over 400 million live on less than one dollar per day.

“While poverty rates have fallen in Africa, the absolute number of the poor has increased, and Africa is the only region where the absolute number of the poor increased in the world,” he said.
He maintained that Africa must rise up and unlock its full agricultural potential, adding that with all its bright sunshine, abundant water resources and cheap labour, Africa should be a global powerhouse in food and agriculture, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

“Africa cannot eat potential and there is no market for selling potential. In Nigeria, we unlocked that potential when I was minister of agriculture. This convinces me that agricultural transformation can occur in a very short period of time. The Agricultural Transformation Agenda which implemented wide-ranging reforms with sharp focus on the private sector-led input delivery systems, value chain development and financing systems, led to an increase of 21 million metric tonnes in food production within three years. The food import bill in the country fell from an all-time high of $11 billion, about N2.18 trillion in 2009 to $3.2 billion, about N636. 96 billion by 2014,” he added.

Cyriacus Nnaji with additional report from Leadership/GEE
 
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Friday, August 21, 2015

Adesina urges Oshiomhole to leverage on ADB



NaijaAgroNet 
 
The former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina  has urged the Edo State Governor, Adams  Oshiomhole to play  politics well,  by leveraging on his  growing relevance at the continental level as the new head of the biggest development financial institution in Africa, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Adeshina said this while reacting to the Governor’s position that the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) of the immediate past administration was a big scam.
According to information from ministry of Agriculture’s website, Adesina who is currently the president of Africa Development Bank (AFDB), contended that Oshiomole’s claim was “lacking in depth, sound logic and was a calculated attempt to rubbish everything about Goodluck Jonathan’s administration under whose leadership, he was able to perform so creditably.”

His special assistant on media, Dr Olukayode Oyeleye, NaijaAgroNet gathered, said the former agriculture minister regretted that the claim was a bad public relations stunt, not expected from the governor, adding that it was even so when it is considered that Oshiomole’s comments detract from the ATA, a reform that was vigorously pursued and implemented by Dr Akin Adesina.

Oyeleye said it was “uncharitable and against the interest of Nigerian public to politicize issues of agriculture and food security as Governor Oshiomhole did in his criticisms of that sector.

“Nigerians know better and will not allow this governor’s attempt to reinvent the wheel or publicity stunt to derail what is perhaps the most ambitious and successful agricultural blueprint since Nigeria’s independence. He ought to have been asking, for instance, the erudite, resourceful and hardworking former minister, how he was able to achieve so much within so short a time.”

Adesina , NaijaAgroNet learnt, observed that at a time that the nation desperately needed to build upon his achievements as agriculture minister, Oshiomole could only do the Edo people some good by recognizing the fact that lending by commercial banks to agriculture increased from 0.07 per cent in 2011 to five per cent in 2014, while banks lent a total of N27.5 billion to fertilizer and seed companies.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology
 Pix:Dr Akinwumi Adesina