In spite of its abundant resources to develop agriculture, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) President, Kanayo Nwanze, said Nigeria was still backward and flayed its continued importation of food that it has the capacity to produce.
Nwanze said in Abuja on Sunday that Nigeria was endowed with the required resources to become food self-sufficient and feed itself.
He said: “Nigeria has all the potential to feed not only itself but also to feed the whole of West Africa; we can’t continue to import food that we can produce in Nigeria.”
“We are in the agro-climatological zone that can produce any food crops ; we have the financial resources ; we have water resources and human resources.
“This country is blessed with the land for farming; but today, in Nigeria, less then 7 per cent of the agricultural land is irrigated,” he said.
According to him, Nigeria has the potential to irrigate at least 40 per cent of its farm lands and not just depend on rainfall.
He expressed disappointment that the country’s irrigation infrastructure was not functioning at optimum capacity, blaming the situation on laxity on the part of the relevant authorities.
Commenting specifically on rice production, Nwanze noted that Nigeria currently produced less than six million tonnes annually as against its capacity to produce nine to 10 million tonnes.
Nwanze recalled that IFAD had for many years supported the production of “NERICA Rice’’ in Nigeria, leading to increased production. However, he said that due to what he termed “internal structural problems’’, government investment in the rice sector was not sustained, resulting to production decline.
He said : “What went wrong in terms of Nigeria’s production of rice was part of the structural problems. IFAD had supported the production of NERICA rice in Nigeria for many years.
“When you invest in agriculture, it is not like a tap you turn off and on ; you must continue to invest continuously every year and you must create an enabling environment to be able to sell what you produce.
“You must create the value chain from production ; put in place facilities and the rural roads must be built so that farmers can transfer their produce to the market ; you must create incentives for them and ensure that they have access to policy issues and market information.
“You must create structures that would allow them to store the produce and if they are not organized, help them to build their capacity. “They must have access to farmers’ services ; ensure that they can borrow money to buy inputs.
He noted that Nigeria was currently producing about six million tonnes of rice as against its capacity to produce nine to 10 million tonnes annually.
Source African Press Agency
African News from NetNewsPublisher.com
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