Hurray! Nigeria’s billionaires now invest in Agric (Read this)

Hurray! Nigeria’s billionaires now invest in Agric (Read this)

Indigenous investors who have made fortunes in other sectors of the economy are now increasingly investing in agriculture under the new dispensation of agricultural transformation agenda. The new commercial farmers, seeing the prospects in the agricultural sector, are putting huge investments into agribusiness investments.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, disclosed this at the ongoing Agribusiness Forum 2013, an annual programme for Africa, organised by the European Marketing Research Centre (EMRC) based in Brussels, Belgium.

“Our billionaires used to make money” from other sectors, including oil, “now, they are moving back to the farm,” he noted.

The theme of the EMRC forum 2013 entitled “The Agri-Food Sector: A Catalyst for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Africa.” The minister was optimistic about the prospect of agriculture, as he said “the future of Africa is bright. We need to secure that future,” and “agriculture as a business is what is needed to secure that future.” The minister gave specific examples. “We have treated sorghum as a subsistence crop before now. We are now turning sorghum into a cash crop,” he said.

The minister vowed that “Nigeria will be the largest processor of food sorghum,” as he explained that “Dansa is investing 36 million euros into the production of high energy foods,” using sorghum as one of the inputs. “Food Concept,” a Nigerian investor, he added, “is partnering with a Rwandan counterpart in a $27 million investment in poultry.”

Dr. Adesina, concurred, however, that “investing in infrastructure is very expensive, but, in Nigeria, to overcome that constraint, “we have developed staple crops processing zones,” which are to set up food manufacturing plants, a cluster of infrastructure “to close the missing link between agriculture and industry.

Another example given by the minister was cassava, a low-value crop, which is now being changed to a high-value crop. “We are working on derivatives of cassava,” he pointed out, adding that “we can produce lowland rice, irrigated rice and floating rice in Nigeria.” Among other reasons why he said agriculture needs to be re-visited is the “slowing down of the oil economy.” He emphasised that, on a continental scale, “this is Africa’s time,” and “Nigeria is the fourth fastest growing economy in the world.”

To make agricultural transformation impactful, Dr. Adesina said certain underlying factors have to be fixed. “At the centre of any agricultural revolution is what you do with your inputs,” he said. Referring to the old unproductive system of government’s involvement in fertiliser distribution, the minister said that “the problem of fertiliser distribution is an elite problem.”

Source: HERE

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