President Muhammadu Buhari has affirmed that the current economic reality calls for the immediate return to agriculture as crude oil and gas exports will no longer be sufficient to sustain the nation’s needs.
The president said it was time Nigerians did more than pay mere lip service to agriculture. President Buhari said this at the Presidential Villa in Abuja yesterday while receiving Dr. Kanayo Nwanze, the Nigerian-born President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) based in Rome, Italy.
“It is time to go back to the land. We must face the reality that the petroleum we had depended on for so long will no longer suffice. We campaigned heavily on agriculture, and we are ready to assist as many as will want to go into agricultural ventures,” the president stated. He said his government would also cut short the long bureaucratic processes that Nigerian farmers have had to go through to get any form of assistance from government.
The president added that his administration would also improve the productivity of farmers, dry season farming and creative ways to combat the shrinking of the Lake Chad. “There is so much to be done. We will try and articulate a programme and consult organisations like IFAD for advice. Foreign exchange will be conserved for machinery and other items needed for production, instead of using it to import things like toothpicks,” Buhari said.
Earlier, Nwanze assured Buhari that IFAD would give all possible assistance to the federal government and Nigerian farmers to boost agricultural production in the country. IFAD is an international organisation dedicated to addressing issues of agriculture and poverty alleviation. It was established in 1978 and has been collaborating with Nigeria for over 30 years.
