Nigeria seeks ties with Saudi Arabia

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, has said Nigeria is seeking investment to produce food throughout the season, as against the current practice of largely rain-fed production. Kyari made this known during the visit of the Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Engr. Abdulrahman Alfadley, and his delegation at the ministry in Abuja.

“Our approach of incorporating immediate, short, medium, and long terms timelines in our strategic workplan is to rapidly develop Nigerian agriculture. In this respect, our focus is to attain continuous cropping all year round in both the dry and wet seasons which are the two major climatic seasons in our country. Consistent with this, wheat was the major crop of focus in 15 of the 36 states in the last dry season. The programme achieved appreciable success with several states surpassing their allotted hectarages. As part of the year-round cropping rice, maize, cassava, sesame, soyabean, sorghum and other staple crops are being targeted. But we know there are huge investment opportunities across the various sub-sectors”, the minister said.

The minister further informed the delegation that the country was gradually strengthening its mechanisation apparatus to boost agricultural production. “Let me use this opportunity to reiterate that the commitment of the incumbent Nigeria government to further expand the investment space in the Nigerian economy, particularly in agriculture, is getting stronger and the government is amassing greater confidence across the globe with renewed assurances of making Nigeria more investment friendly with an unrelenting emphasis on ease of doing business, thereby opening wide the door for mutual benefits for well-meaning investors including from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. “We are desirous of a share in the agri-market of the Kingdom of the Saudi Arabia, the leading economy in the Middle East, to surpass the current volume of agri-trade as provided by available figures, in areas such as sesame, cashew, ginger, soyabean, wheat, maize, palm oil, animal feed, among others”, Kyari said.

Meanwhile, two Ibadan-based farmers, Tajudeen Ojo and Abayomi Smith have described the Federal Government’s initiative as welcome in terms of the likely impact on food security in the country, if properly pursued. He, however, called on the minister to ensure that small-scale farmers are better protected to increase food production in the nation, saying the current atmosphere seems not too encouraging to foster agricultural production. “They need to look seriously at issues bordering on cheap access to finance, inadequate storage facilities, poor road networks, updates on modern farming techniques, and agric insurance cover for farmers, among others”, Ojo stated while Smith wants the government to be closer to farmers by engaging them more when it comes to policy making.