Subsidy, Key To Green Revolution – Adesina

The Minister of
Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has risen in defence of agriculture subsidies while advocating the use of the private sector as a funneling platform in order to curb corruption.
The minister who stated this recently at the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) High Level Policy Dialogue in Addisababa, Ethiopia, said that African farmers deserve the same kind of supports given to their peers in developed countries.
The CIFSRF policy dialogue was a major pre-event gathering ahead of the 2014 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) and the minister was unapologetic in his stout defence of the African farmer.
“While developed countries support their farmers with massive subsidies, African farmers, who are poor are barely supported,” he said, even as he refused to back down when his view drew challenges from the audience.
He noted that subsidy programmes, if transparent and efficient, are vital to agricultural transformation particularly in the early phases when there is “usually a considerable need to ensure that poor women and small holders benefit from innovations to farm practice”.
According to the minister, “if it had not been for subsidies, India would not be the power house it is today.”
He said it was what kick- started the transformation of India’s and Asia’s economy even as he said the problem lied with the mode of delivery of the subsidy as against the concept of subsidy in itself.
The minister harped on the need to deploy the private sector as the channel for delivering agric subsidy citing the Nigerian experience.