NIGERIA: Sharing Risks between Farmers and Lending Institutions Is Critical for Agric Development

0 0
Spread the love
Read Time:3 Minute, 30 Second
Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Bwacha, spoke to Emmanuel Bello and Steve omanufeme on expectations and benefits of WEF to the agriculture sector and what legislature is doing to improve agricultural production. Excerpts:
 
What are your expectations from the WEF in respect of agricultural development?
 
The benefits the forum will have on agriculture is that it will further boost interest in the sector to complement the huge input it has received from government over the years.
 
The forum will give investors an opportunity to see the huge potential in the sector. Specifically, the forum will afford participants an avenue to see the investments in the sector since the Agricultural Transformational Agenda (ATA). So the sector exposed to the differing participants for them to make their investment decisions
 
It will provide government the opportunity to tell its story so far and showcase to the world that we now have a diversified economy. The sector has played a critical role in contributing to GDP.
 
With the agricultural transformation agenda, the sector has received huge inputs from government, which has boosted its contribution to GDP and employment. The forum will provide government the opportunity to drive more investment to the economy. So the sector is important and critical to the forum.
 
 
One area the agriculture sector has been successful is attracting foreign investments. I remember being in an agric-business investment forum in Washington in 2012 where we showcased the potential in the sector, and we have received visitation and interest from investors across the globe. In fairness to the minister, he has brought agriculture to the forefront, putting it in its pride of place to complement earnings from the oil industry.
 
What specific legislation are you looking at to institute an enabling environment for investment in agriculture?
 
In the home front, what we are looking at the sharing of risks between farmers and lending institutions. This will encourage farmers to produce more. But the current security situation is a major challenge impacting on production. I am talking about domestic factors that will encourage agricultural production. If this done farmers will get requisite funding without bearing risks 100 per cent and this will encourage them.
 
One of the theme of WEF is creating jobs are you legislating on ways to make agriculture employ more Nigerians?
 
Yes. I think agriculture is the only sector trying to redeem Nigeria from the challenges of unemployment and one way we are doing to improve on its contribution to employment is by increasing budgetary allocation to the sector.
 
However, we are constraint by the intricacies surrounding budget preparation. We are still behind the Maputo regulation of allocating at least 10 per cent of budgetary allocations to agriculture, but we are working on improving funding for the sector.
 
We are trusting God that with the campaign and sensitisation going on to increase funding and attracting investment to the sector, we will be able to address the issue of unemployment. Funding is the biggest challenge
 
What legislative interventions are there to encourage processing of agric products
 
We had a meeting with minister of agriculture some days ago and he informed us that he has about three executive bills on the issue of issue of backward integration and processing of agricultural products. When we receive the bills we work on them and pass them expeditiously. We are looking at all possible areas of legislation to rescue the sector.
 
One area is wheat importation which government is trying to stop. We are legislating the specific content of wheat in locally produced bread to discourage importation and promote local production of the product. This just one among the bills we are are looking at others are on controlling pricing of commodity index to agricultural products to encourage production
 
Any specific message from you to participants?
 
Nigeria needs to be encouraged both by world financial institutions and key players in agriculture. That is what we need at this point of our development. The message is that we have the potential and if given the necessary support we will able to break grounds.
Happy
Happy
0 %
Sad
Sad
0 %
Excited
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
Angry
0 %
Surprise
Surprise
0 %

Facebook Comments

Previous post NIGERIA: NAMA Installs Solar Powered Lights at Lagos Airport Runway
Next post NIGERIA: Overcoming Negative Attitude in Workplaces

Average Rating

5 Star
0%
4 Star
0%
3 Star
0%
2 Star
0%
1 Star
0%

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.