Follow Us on Google
FG prioritising education, food security attractive to investors – Akobundu
Ibom Air to commence regional flight October as part of welcoming investors – Umo Eno
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, New York
President Bola Tinnube, has stressed that the need for small holders farmers in Nigeria and the continent at large to access financing to ensure food security.
He said this at the High Level Side Event organized by the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) Nigeria in collaboration with its Continental Counterpart (AUDA-NEPAD).
The event titled “Attracting investments in Land Restoration, Food Systems, and Rural Transformation in Africa”, was aimed at exploring innovation solutions, investment opportunities, and partnerships to enhance productivity, resilence, and sustainable in African agriculture, focusing on smallholder farmers.
It also provided the platform to share best practices, success stories, and strategies for investment in land restoration and smallholder farming.
President Tinubu had in July declared State of Emergency on food insecurity to tackle the increase in food prices.
Represented by Senator Abdulaziz Yar’adua, President Tinubu, listed factor inhibiting food security to include bad governance which has led to conflicts and political instability in some of the African countries, climate change, as it brings unpredictable weather patterns, prolonged droughts and flooding on the continent and landed degradation.
Others are limited access to financing as only 300 out of the 774 local governments areas in Nigeria have bank branches, with some small farm holders travelling sometimes upto 200 kilometers to be able to access finance, infrastructure gaps with some rural farmers not having good access roads to be able to evacuate their produce to the markets and absent of technology in most of the rural communities which they can leverage to their advantage to sell their produce.
Others are inconsistencies in policies that affects land tenure, land reformation, and agriculture itself, cumbersome regulatory processes, which can also frustrate international finance institutions assistance in agricultural production in most of the African countries.
Speaking on the importance of the event for Nigeria, Tinubu said: “This event is quite important for Nigeria as it affects rural farmers in our communities. So it is important to attract financing, investment and also ensure that certain processes are put in place so that our rural farmers can have very good harvest.
“We’re doing everything possible in Nigeria to ensure that all the things that are needed within the agriculture value chain are provided to the farmers but most importantly, this event and this session that I attended, which involves attracting international financing, is to ensure that our rural farmers are given access to finance.”
Senator Yar’Adua on his own speaking on the importance of access to financing for small holders farmers, recalled how the the Central Bank of Nigeria under the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration had to be involved in getting the rural farmers access to finance because the Nigerian financial institutions were not interested because “basically they believed agriculture is not a business they can quickly get profit out of.
“So in the last administration, the government had to involve the Central Bank of Nigeria through the Anchor Borrowers scheme to ensure that our rural farmers have access to finance.
“With this international financing investment, I think it will add value to what is existing in Nigeria to ensure that our rural farmers get access to finance, get capacity, get knowledge of modern agriculture, and for them to understand that agriculture is a business, for them to understand that we need to build their capacity in order to ensure that they reap maximum benefit in what they do, so that it does not stop just at subsistence farming that we do only during the rainy season.
“So it involves the financing that will be an all year round funding for our rural farmers. And once you engage rural communities, of course, the economy will improve, the gross domestic product of the country will improve.“
On President Tinubu’s main message at this event, Yar’Adua said: “His message is for the investors to recognize not only Nigeria, but also African countries, and to see how they can bring their financing to help in assisting rural farmers gain access to financing. That is why in his own effort, he has rolled out programmes to ensure that rural farmers gain access to more than resistance seedlings other agricultural facilities, so that with the financing it becomes much easier for them.”
Speaking on the benefits of the side event, Chief Executive Officer of AUDA-NEPAD Nigeria, Gloria Akobundu, said: “President Bola Tinubu, has set his target and his goals. We’re so grateful that food systems and education are priorities to his goals and his great vision for Nigeria and Africa. For us in Africa Union Development Agency, our mandate centers at driving the vision of the heads of states and government, ensuring its implementation and reporting back.
“So we’re so grateful to him as our leaders and our president, we’re grateful for his passion, for his commitment and dedication in realizing a peaceful, and vibrant economy in Nigeria, of which there will be an overflow to other African countries.
“So coming here today on Global Financing for food systems, is very welcome to development for the country. And it’s in line with His Excellency’s vision on realizing food security, and also in line with African Union agenda 2063 and the SDGs.
“So we’re so grateful for the opportunity he has given to us to do the job and to ensure that the dream and the vision of the country in ensuring stability, and food security country comes to bear.
“Education and food becomes a priority and the bedrock for development. And there’s no doubt if achieved will curb insecurity, create jobs, ensure exports, grow our GDP, add a lot to the economy of our country.
“So it’s a welcome development, and you can see development partners we’ve been working with them, they’re very much interested. They’re very happy the Nigerian government, with the set goals, the policies, even Mr President went ahead to promise that he’s going to remove every bottleneck to ensure that these priorities succeed and we’re grateful.
“So for us, he has given us all the tools to go out there and get the need for them. And that’s why we’re here collaborating with African Union, Development Agency, continental Secretariat to mobilize development partners, to market, urged, educate and inform the global community on the priority of Nigerian government and Africa at large and also to woo investors and ensure that at every sectors of the economy that investors want to come into partner with Nigeria is achieved following the vision of our leader, President Bola Tinubu.”
Sharing his state’s readiness to welcome investors, Akwa Ibom State Governor, Umo Eno said, apart from Abuja, Akwa Ibom has made conscious efforts to put infrastructure.
Represented by his Special Assistant, Ekem John, the governor said: “We are making conscious efforts in terms of the three gateways – land, air and sea. You can go to anywhere within Akwa Ibom in one hour on motorable roads. So that’s an effort because we conscious of the fact that as we’re promoting agriculture, small farm holders in our rural areas must be able to evacuate their produce.
“In terms of air infrastructure. We’re the first sub-national governments to build and operate an airport efficiently. I think we’re the first sub-national government in West Africa to own an airline and that airline traverses the entire Nigeria and in the coming few days, in October, we’ll be establishing regional flights from Uyo. So investors can seize that opportunity to invest in agriculture in Akwa Ibom.
“The governor following inauguration, separated the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, and mandated the Ministry of Water Resources to begin to work out modality to improve on our irrigation systems for our farms and so that’s ongoing right now.”
Eno said he was recently in Benin Republic where he signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Songhai farms and “the idea really, is to train small farm holders into adopting modern agric practices. And so we’re setting up a Songhai farm in Akwa Ibom and we’re recruiting young people are trying to make agric fashionable for the young people. So they are paid the salaries, trained and then allowed to go and establish and run their farms.
“The government is also thinking ahead by providing storage facilities for these farmers that we are bringing on board. And let me also say that apart from the education in terms of regulation, just last week, before we departed for this meeting, we clamped down on some companies and I would like to use this opportunity to thank the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who had in a speech at the General Assembly, highlighted the problems of illegal mining in Nigeria.”
