‘Agriculture Should Be Run As A Business’

The Minister of Agri
culture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina,  has said that agriculture should be run as a business venture.
Adesina stated this recently in  Abeokuta, Ogun State, at the 40th regular meeting of the National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARI) with the Theme from “Farm To Table”.
He said Nigeria was the  only country in Africa to developed the e-wallet system meant to send subsidies via electronic vouchers directly to farmers through call phone.
According  to him, the system has ended successfully 40 years of corruption where middlemen did not allow inputs to get to farmers.
Speaking on the successes of the scheme, Adesina recalled that 15 billion tonnes of fertilizers worth $100 million had been sold to farmers while 1.5 million metric tones of seeds worth $10 million had been sold directly to farmers via the e-wallet with zero per cent default on the GES scheme.
Declaring the meeting open, the Ogun State governor, Ibikuule Amosun expressed regret that Nigeria still imports over  N1.3 trillion worth of rice, sugar and fish each year despite the nation’s huge agric opportunities.
He revealed that Nigeria was believed to be the world’s largest importer of United States hard, red and white winter wheat and second largest importer of rice.
He said such a development his impacted negatively on the nation’s economy as it fuels domestic inflation, displace local production and creates rising unemployment in the nation.
He however expressed the hope that with the on-going collaboration of all states in the federation with the FG on the transformation agenda particularly in agriculture, the sector would experience business opportunities.
He charged the minister and other stakeholders to come up with policies that would guarantee quality food supply on the table of every Nigeria.
Speaking to newsmen at the event, Pat Utomi of the Lagos Business School said “the key to agric development is to run it as a business enterprise because where people profit their passions                    and commitments will be there.”