As a way of bridging the funding challenge in the agriculture sector, the Federal Government has announced plans to invest $300 million to fund youths in the sector, adding that 20 per cent of an initial grant by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with the Islamic Bank is to be channelled to support the development of women and youth in Agriculture at a total cost of N100m annually for a five year period.
This was disclosed yesterday by the Minister of state for Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri while fielding questions from newsmen at a media briefing to declare open the Empowering Novel Agri-Business Led Employment, ENABLE, conference in Abuja.
He stated that the Federal Government will support the youths by investing $300m to fund them in agriculture so as to cut down the nation’s food import bill which stands at over N20 billion.
Lokpobiri, who noted that the programme will be replicated across all the nations 109 Senatorial zones with the ultimate aim of empowering the Nigerian youth and bringing down the nation’s food import bill, lamented that Nigeria had become a dumping ground for all manner of poisonous foods including poultry pumped and preserved with formaldehyde.
“We cannot continue to import food at this time. With Nigeria being the highest producer of Cassava and the high demand for ethanol, the federal government is in the process of acquiring 18-20 cassava processing plants from China,” he said.
Lamenting that N6m worth of rice is imported daily with over 20 million eggs following the 100mtonnes deficit suffered by Nigeria in egg production, the Minister assured that the federal government was set to unfold a roadmap for the development of agriculture in the weeks ahead.
