AfDB Invests $25bn In Agriculture, Agricbusiness

The African Development Bank (AfDB) says it is currently investing 25 billion dollars to help make agriculture and agribusiness Africa’s biggest industry.
A statement by the bank’s Communication and External Relations Department yesterday, said the AfDB’s president, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, made the disclosure at the ongoing Tokyo International Conference of African Development (TICAD) in Japan.
Adesina said the reason was not far-fetched and predicted that the size of food and agriculture would rise to one trillion dollars by 2030.
According to him, a lot of progress has been made in this renewed drive to transform agriculture on the continent.
“The AfDB inaugurated the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) to help ramp up technologies to millions of farmers.
“TAAT connects the global agricultural research centres, national agricultural research centres, private sector and agricultural value chains in Africa, in an unprecedented effort to connect the supply and demand side of technologies seamlessly.
“For the first time, accountability was built into the approach, with technology delivery compacts signed by all participating institutions and partners.
“TAAT partners, which include the World Bank, AGRA, IFAD and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have mobilised one billion dollars, he said.