By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria is targeting self-sufficiency in wheat and rice production in the near term as part of efforts to reduce the dependence on imports to feed the country’s growing population.
Speaking during a fire-side chat with the AfDB President, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, at the Norman Borlaug International Dialogue, World Food Prize 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa, United States of America, Nigeria’s Vice President, Mr Kashim Shettima, spoke on the government’s initiatives for food security and said the quality of present leadership in Nigeria and the rest of Africa will drive transformation in agriculture and other sectors.
According to him, “Our target towards wheat production in Nigeria is to achieve 50 per cent self-sufficiency in the next three cycles. It is inconceivable that we are the second-largest wheat importer in the world.
“Luckily, we have already procured the heat-tolerant variety of wheat seeds and we are going to drive that process by supporting the farmers with the heat-tolerant variety, agricultural extension services, and fertilizer and also hope to increase the irrigation areas to 1 million hectares in the next cropping cycle.
“We need to produce about 2.4 million tonnes of wheat grains in Nigeria. We are going to reach out to our farmers through small irrigation schemes and through digitalisation. All the actors in the value chain will be sufficiently taken care of through innovative finance, partial credit guarantees, and crop insurance.”
For rice production, the VP said the major challenge for Nigeria is the insufficiency of paddy rice, noting that the country has adequate milling capacity but “we need to produce 3 to 4 million tonnes of paddy rice to meet our requirement of about 2.5 million tonnes per annum. We have 75 million hectares of arable land and most of it is suited for rice cultivation.”
The VP emphasized that “we will provide our farmers with certified seeds, fertilizer, extension services, the digitalisation of services, inputs, finance, and market information. Our target is to achieve self-sufficiency in rice by 2027,” adding that with the leadership of his principal, changes will come to the critical agriculture sector.
In his words, “I want to assure this gathering of investors and stakeholders in the agricultural sector that my boss, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a quintessential 21st century modern African leader who is determined to redefine the meaning and concept of modern leadership.
“Be rest assured that there will be a sea change in the fortunes of the Nigerian nation and by extension the African continent in the next couple of years because Nigeria is an anchor nation.”
Mr Shettima also spoke about the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs), reiterating the administration’s commitment to providing an enabling environment for investors in the zones.
He said the government would create a SAPZ development authority that would operate like a one-stop shop where regulatory and associated issues would be addressed.
Modupe Gbadeyanka