Zubair stated this at the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute in Ilorin, on Friday in a lecture titled “Public Private Partnership in Commercial Agriculture in Nigeria.”
The President‘s aide noted that given the low budget for agriculture and resource level of farmers, robust policies aimed at scaling up PPP in commercial agriculture was imperative.
She described Nigeria as ‘an aid orphan‘, which receives less than $2 per capita, while the average in Africa is about $28.
She said, ”Within the period 1999 and 2007, Nigeria received $6.084bn and only one per cent of this went to agriculture. However, a projected investment of $44.56bn in the agric sector is needed in order to achieve the MDGs.”
Zubair lamented that the country was facing ‘an agricultural paradox‘, with plentiful agricultural resources and little to take care of her food needs.
She added, ”Nigeria is not a poor country in terms of agric resources, yet food insecurity remains pressing. With a GDP of $207bn in 2008, Nigeria is the third largest in Africa, after South Africa and Egypt. Though starvation is rare, malnutrition and malnourishment are widespread in both urban and rural areas.”
She listed the major constraints in the sector as under-funding, weak private sector linkages, inadequate research infrastructure and subsistence level of production.
She also identified inappropriate technology and low mechanisation, poor rural infrastructure, poorly developed storage system, dearth of reliable data and inconsistent policies and programmes as other major challenges.
In his comments, the Acting Executive Director of ARMTI, Mr. Julius Onietan, said the choice of the topic was in recognition of the place of PPP in agriculture.
Onietan noted that the seminar underscored the role of commercial agriculture and its capacity to help in achieving food security and in attaining Vision 20:2020.
Source:Punch
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