Politics
VICE President Kashim Shettima says the $500 million World Bank-supported AGROW programme will bridge the gap between farmers and national planning.
Shettima stated this on Tuesday while receiving the final report of the National Technical Working Group on AGROW at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Sustainable Agricultural Value Chains for Growth Programme was developed through seven zonal consultations involving 32 states.
The consultations reflected subnational governments’ growing commitment to agricultural development and readiness to assume greater responsibility for productivity, extension services and market development.
The presentation of the final report marked the conclusion of the programme’s design phase and its transition to implementation.
Shettima said the agricultural sector’s major challenge was the distance between farmers who tilled the soil and systems determining the value of their labour.
The vice president assured that the government would implement measures to shorten that distance.
He described the AGROW report as the conclusion of a design process that restored farmers to the centre of national economic reasoning.
Shettima said the programme was designed around farmers’ realities, delivered through states and capable of attracting private investment.
He said the initiative would help move agriculture from subsistence to scale.
The vice president said agriculture must not be treated as “a negligible sector, attended to at leisure and financed at the margins.”
He noted that most Nigerians earned their livelihoods from the soil, saying: “No other sector carries as many livelihoods or touches as many households as the agriculture sector.
“When yields rise, food prices ease, rural incomes recover, industries receive raw materials, and the pressure on our cities and foreign reserves begins to relax.
“When yields fall, the entire economy discovers the price of hunger.”
He said agricultural productivity was therefore a question of growth, employment, food security and poverty reduction. “What we do to the farm, we do to the nation,” he stated.
Shettima expressed satisfaction with the states’ response, saying their participation revealed the scale of the opportunity before the country.
He said the participation of 32 states in seven consultations reflected the urgency of the challenges confronting agriculture.
“It also demonstrated the growing appetite across Nigeria for agricultural development and investment,” he added.
Earlier, Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State said the World Bank had previously briefed governors on the working group’s objectives and the initiative.
He thanked the vice president for giving the states the opportunity to maximise the programme’s benefits.
Sule said governors were fully in support of the “laudable programme”.
The Deputy Governor of Kaduna, Mrs Hadiza Balarabe, also expressed the state’s readiness to take advantage of the initiative.
She assured the vice president that the state government would establish a coordination mechanism to ensure timely implementation.
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Taiwo Oyedele, said the report reflected what could be achieved when stakeholders worked together.
Oyedele said the programme went beyond food production, describing it as integral to Nigeria’s economic transformation, macroeconomic stability and job creation.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, assured stakeholders of the ministry’s commitment to successful implementation.
Kyari said the completion and presentation of the report had shifted attention to the programme’s next phase.
The World Bank’s AGROW Programme Leader, Ms Bertine Kamphuis, assured Nigeria of the bank’s continued support.
She said the final report would enable Nigeria to ensure that interventions translated into improved food security and poverty reduction. (NAN)
F.O
Tags: AGROW farmers National Planning Shettima