Day Jigawa seeks responsible agriculture investment

A two-day workshop on responsible agriculture investment principles was last week held in Abuja with focus on encouraging large scale agricultural projects in Jigawa State for job creation.

The workshop was facilitated by the Growth and Employment in States (GEMS3), a DFID funded programme to improve the business environment in Nigeria.

The workshop looked at Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) for Jigawa State, taking into consideration issues of land ownership and compensations for displaced farmers among others.

Dangote Group is acquiring about 20,000 hectares for rice production in pursuant of the President’s self-sufficiency in rice and the Lead Group wants 10,000 hectares for sugar production in Dagarawa.

Deputy Governor of the state, Alhaij Ibrahim Hadeja who chaired the event, told Daily Trust that the programme was designed to brainstorm and articulate a position on responsible agricultural investments in the state.

“As a state government we are interested in creating an environment that will attract large scale commercial agriculture investment. 90% of our citizens are farmerssubsistent farmers holding very small land and group food crops that are just 10% of the global average yield. The only way we can boast agricultural expansion is to invite people who do agriculture in commercial basis,” Hadeja said.

He also said instead of the investors coming and simply growing and taking out money, government has to come and protect those small scale farmers, adding that “these are some of the principles we are trying to articulate.”

On its part, Umar Nuhu Mohammed, Deputy Team Leader of GEMS3 said, “GEMS3 works with private and public stakeholders at national, state and local government levels to build and deliver a systematic framework that will help make it easier to do business in Nigeria, leading to lasting improvements in economic opportunities for the poor, especially women.”