Agriculture keeps Nigerian popul

MUHAMMAD SABO NANONO

studied Business Administration at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria but exceptional love for agriculture made h August, 2019 as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. A respected elder Statesman and patriot, N started his career as a Clerk at the Central Bank of Nigeria and rose to become the Managing Director of the defunct African International Bank Faculty of Administration, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he obtained his first Degree. He later obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Pol Economics at the University of Wisconsin Madison, USA, in 1977. Nanono has attended many courses within and outside the country, the mo Programme (AMP-114) at Harvard University, Boston Massachusetts, USA in 1994. He served in not less than seventeen (17) boards of compan 1988 to 1992, Sub-committee on Privatization and Commercialization of the Nigerian Ports Authority(npa) 1985, Hadejia Jama’are River Basin State Privatization and Commercialization Committee, 1990 – 1992. In the 14 months of his tenure as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Deve this key ministry into the bride of the nation. According to him, his passion for agriculture and love of his country Nigeria, informed his des very much interested in agriculture and most people identify me with it”, he said, stressing that “agriculture is the sector that has been hold agriculture to the next level”. The Minister spoke exclusively to Businessday’s General Manager (North), in Abuja.

As the minister of agriculture and rural development, what is your own vision and policy direction for the ministry?

When you talk of agriculture in any country, it is important to appreciate the natural opportunities given to you by the Almighty God. Nigeria has enormous resource base for the development of agriculture and thereby creating a strong platform for linkage between this sector (Agriculture) and the industries sector. The cardinal principle upon which this administration started in relation to agriculture are:

Food security

Creating a platform for value chain development both vertical and horizontal in collaboration with industrial sector.

Developing the livestock subsector for the benefit of the pastoralists, the farmers and the entire country i.e. livestock transformation.

And in the process modernize the entire agricultural value chain i. e. through mechanization and improvement in research and development.

It is important to note that as of today, 65% of the arable land is in Africa and out of this Nigeria has probable about 30% of the 65% we have between 84 million hectares to 92 million hectares of arable land in Nigeria but we are only cultivating about 34 million average tonne per hectare across the board in this country is between 1,2 to 1.6 tonne per hectare which is far below the world average of 6 to 8 tons per hectare. The priority of any country is to have food, security and essential element for stability and wellbeing of the ever growing population, Nigeria has a population of about 200 million people or even more and is projected in the next 40 years our population will be in the region of 400 million. This is a serious challenge and for us to achieve certain level of comfort, we have to modernize agriculture through mechanization. Our level of tractor penetration in this country is at 7 tractors per 100sq Kilometers as against the standard of 127 tractors per 100sq Kilometers. And so, there is enormous gap in the Nigerian Agricultural Mechanization Space. It is in this regard, that the Federal Government has entered into a bilateral agreement with Brazilian Government for the mechanization 06 632 Local Governments in the country and the setting up of processing centers in 140 Local Governments; all these under the Green Imperative. The second important and fundamental issue is creating a strong synergy between agriculture and industry i.e. creating a strong and sustainable value chain at Micro and Macro Levels. A lot of achievements have being done at the Micro Level but however, at Macro Level we have a long way to go. It is important to reflect that we lost our bearing in the mid-1980s when our Agro-allied Industries were gradually degenerating to the extent that in one of our major industry (Textiles) collapsed virtually. We lost nearly 145 Textile Mills in the country over the last 3040 years. This was one of the major reasons for the high level of unemployment of youths in this country. It is important to note for Nigeria to absorb this high level of unemployment youths, we have to deliberately and at any cost being back the AgroAllied Industry into work. It requires a lot of capital investment and strong political will. And this is what the present government is currently focusing on. The other aspect of crucial importance is the Livestock Development and Transformation. Nigeria has presently over 33 Trillion Naira worth of Livestock ranging from cattle, goals and sheep, pigs, horses and donkeys and poultry, this is an important national asset that no country can joke about it hence, the Federal Government is focused on the development of this Sector for the purposes of reducing our imports of milk and meat and other related items. Our current consumption of milk is about 5 Million Liters per day. And we have a resource base of about 25 Million Cows and if we can only make 5 Million cows to produce 1 Liter of Milk per day, Nigeria will be self-sufficient in milk production. The issue now becomes that of logistics and the Federal Government is tackling this head-on through the establishment of milk processing centers across the country and luckily enough the private sector is also keying-in into this initiative. As a Minister of Agriculture, I am gearing-up development of this infrastructure with a view to ban the importation of milk into this country in the next two (2) years.

With this brilliant and unique policy direction, what have been