By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

Africa cannot continue with $35 billion annual food import, with Nigeria’s massive arable land, the Managing Director (MD) of the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Mr. Aliyu Abdulhameed, has said.

The Federal Government through the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), African Development Bank (AfDB) and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) aimed at addressing Africa’s $35 billion annual food import

Managing Director of NIRSAL, Mr. Aliyu Abdulhameed, who stated this, noted that Africa cannot continue with $35 billion annual food import, adding that the partnership is aimed at realizing the Feed Africa initiative of AfDB.

Feed Africa is AfDB’s initiative towards massive food production on the continent, through improved technology by ensuring increase yield per hectare, as well as, attracting the youth to agriculture.

Abdulhameed stated: “The background to this is that AfDB has developed a technology to see how Africa’s agriculture can leapfrog in order to meet the requirements of the 21st Century – rapid population growth and the fact that Africa imports $35 billion of food commodities from around the world and we know we have sufficient resources to feed Africa, Nigeria in particular, we have land resource, water resource, we have the market opportunities.

“But the technology required to increase our yields from subsistent level to what can be commercially viable, what can create surplus of communities and the market and in order to substitute for imports is what is needed. We have found in AfDB TAAT (Technology for Africa Agricultural Transformation) system a one-stop shop   that can give us the capability and the technology required to be applied on the ground to support primary production of virtually all the commodities required in Nigeria and leapfrog the technology overnight,” he said.

Abdulhameed added that the partnership would also work on how to make appropriate, good quality fertilizer available to farmers. He said that the greatest challenge of fertilizer in the country was not the question of manufacturing but the supply at the downstream, especially to farmers in rural communities.

In his remark, Director of Agriculture and Agro- Industry Department, AfDB, Mr. Martin Fregene, said that at the heart of rural poverty in Africa and the heart of the high cost of food was the low productivity of key staples.

He said that the Feed Africa Initiative would bring farmers and technology together in order to achieve the high yield objective of the programme.

Also speaking, Dr. Kenton Dashiell of IITA said that his organization would act as coordinator of all the research institutes that would bring their skills and specialties on crops and animal value chains targeted at transforming agriculture in Nigeria.