‘2023 Agric Show To Address Food Security Challenges’

National Agricultural Foundation of Nigeria (NAFN) has concluded plans for the 2023 agricultural show with focus on addressing the multifaceted challenges in Nigeria’s agricultural sector.

The event which will begin from 20th-24th November, is expected to bring stakeholders together to move the agricultural sector forward with a notable shift to address food security challenges in response to the state of emergency declared by President Bola Tinubu on food security in Nigeria.

The 2023 show is put together by  NAFN in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

At a briefing to herald the event in Abuja, chairman, board of trustees, NAFN, Arc Kabir Ibrahim, said that the show will be an opportunity for the farmers to display their products, share their experiences and voice their concerns to the government on current challenges facing the sector.

Kabir who is also the national president of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), advocated for optimising regional production based on local crops and processing methods and the need for the federal government to align actions with farmers’ expectations.

He pointed out the need  for the federal government to equally address insecurity, promote science, technology and innovation and for farmers to embrace biotechnology to boost food production for the growing population.

He said, “We want to change the narrative as agricultural business is really private sector, which the government is only supposed to provide the enabling environment for agricultural productivity to thrive and that is why we are imploring all other stakeholders in the agriculture space to be available for the show, to see what we can do as farmers.

We also want to draw the attention of Nigeria that food security for Nigerians means you have to contend with insecurity, you have to stem it for the farmers to be able to produce optimally, you must embrace some form of biotechnology, mechanisation or deploy STI, to be able to get food security, and food security is possible in Nigeria”.