UNECA-SA urges Government in southern Africa region to transform its Agriculture sector

NaijaAgroNet

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa southern Africa office (UNECA-SA) has called on governments in the region to make a change in the agriculture sector to develop into food secure and enhance nutritional security NaijaAgroNet reports

This was discoursed at a two-day meeting being held under the watch of UNECA-SA from March 9-10 which prompted the UNECA-SA director, Said Adejumobi who said agricultural transformation could be a reality in southern Africa and they could feed themselves through agro-industry development.

He also said, to bring the agricultural transformation dream to be realistic, the state needs to render its support as it cannot be successful on its own.

“Africa’s agricultural transformation cannot take place without the state; not for the state to be a producer, but to actively support and if need be, subsidize the agriculture sector and Agro-industrial development cannot be effective without state
support.”

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Africa’s future billionaires will emerge from agriculture

NaijaAgroNet

Nigerian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has predicted that Africa’s future billionaires will emerge from the agriculture sector, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Adesina disclosed to NaijaAgroNet that at this time he wanted to help people become rich through farming

“My goal is to make as many millionaires, maybe even billionaires, from agriculture as possible,” he declared.

Adesina revealed to NaijaAgroNet that African Development Bank is financing $170 million, about N33,915,000,000 billion for a Nigerian project that aims to transform agriculture, stressing that the project aims to create agricultural entrepreneurs and producers by providing about 120,000 jobs along the value chain of priority commodities.

NaijaAgroNet reports that additional 20 million tonnes of key food crops including cassava, rice, and sorghum will be added to the domestic food supply each year, if all goes according to plan.

He explained that a significant part of the project is developing outreach models in agriculture with young entrepreneurs, aka youth agripreneurs, with the plan to promote agriculture among other youth in their regions through peer education, training and demonstration of agricultural best practices, and business skills in value-chain development.

Adesina urged youth to see agriculture as a business, not as a tool for development. As African governments roll out plans to unlock wealth from the soil,

Insisting on his prediction that a new, wealthy population made up largely of young people will create jobs and bring business opportunities to rural communities across the continent.

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Allocate 10% of budget to agric research- CASON

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The Coordinator, Agribusiness and Youths Empowerment of Community of Agricultural Stakeholders of Nigeria (CASON), Mr Sotonye Anga has called on the Federal Government to devote 10 per cent of the national budget to boost the capacity of research institutes towards the development of the agriculture sector, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Anga gave the charge at the presentation of his paper titled “New Path to Wealth: Micro and Small Scale Food Processing in Africa,” at the 29th Omolayole management lecture series in Lagos and stressed that government need to spend money in the sector in order to allow it add value to the lives of the people.

“I am worried how far our agriculture can go with budget allocation of less than three per cent of national budget allotted to agriculture. Let me state clearly that it will not be out of place to give at least 10 percent of our national budget beginning with 2014 to agriculture and maintain this trend for the next 10 years. This is the way to go if we are serious about accelerating development in the sector,” he said.

He called for more efforts to ensure that lending to the agricultural sector is on a single digit interest rate and said that “you will kill our farmers when you lend to them at 26 percent per annum.”

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pix:President Goodluck Jonathan