The Nigeria AgriBusiness Group (NABG) has mapped out strategies to improve agribusiness in Nigeria through a presidential retreat that will likely be held in Abuja in July 2023.
This was the focus during a pre-retreat technical session for the roundtable in Abuja recently, which was organised by NABG and various agricultural experts to undertake a complete overview of the agriculture sector in order to advise the President Bola Tinubu administration on how best to develop agriculture in the country.
The presidential round table, according to the NABG, “is a high-level platform designed to facilitate evocative discussions among key stakeholders, including government officials, industry leaders, experts and representatives of civil society and organisations.”
The Director General of the Group, Dr Manzo Maigari, said “This year’s presidential round table meeting is unique in the sense that it is essentially to review the performance of the agric sector in all facets and come up with a report that shall be presented to the newly inaugurated administration on how to tackle the challenges militating against the development of agriculture.
“Agric experts are aware that so many challenges have constituted an albatross for the development of Agriculture. From challenges associated with climate change to unsustainable farm practices and inability to access improved seedlings and fertiliser for small farm holders, the planned presidential round table meeting is to provide solutions to the new administration in order to tackle crippling problems haranguing agriculture in the country”.
Also speaking during the technical session Country Manager of Harvest Plus, Yusuf Dollah, said the presence of critical partners at the meeting is preparing ground for the convening a presidential round table to be held in Abuja in order to review the agric sector in the last eight years.
“At Harvest Plus, we complement existing nutrient initiatives, using a food-based approach. We do that to ensure that stable food crops that we consume provide micro nutrients for the healthy growth of citizens. In tackling the challenges of nutrients for citizens, we pay particular attention to the quality of staple crops to ensure required nutrition for Nigerians,” Dollah said.
The Country Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) Dr. Michael Ojo told reporters in an interview that the roundtable discussion has become imperative judging by the need to improve food production for the nutritional requirements of Nigerians who are mostly malnourished.
“Nigeria is facing a malnutrition problem, poor diet, poor access in terms of economic opportunities,” he said, adding that “80% of Nigerians are food insecure.”
He noted that malnutrition is caused by poverty even as he charged the government to create an enabling environment to support small holder farmers to transform agriculture through investment in technology.
Also speaking, Dr. Abdullahi Umar, who represented the International Fertiliser Development Centre (IFDC)/HortiNigeria at the meeting, noted that agribusiness should be given all the incentive through massive support of the small holder farmers. He added that IFDC is ready to partner with all the stakeholders to make it possible.
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