Experts give reasons for rising hunger

…as Shabu Farms hosts solution summit   Rising from the 2021 Agriprenuership Summit organised for Nigerian youths, stakeholders in the agricultural sector have blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for the rising wave of insecurity, poverty, hunger and unemployment in the country. The summit, held at the Agripreneur Academy, Shabu Farms, Kokoma-Keffi in Nasarawa State, was aimed […]

…as Shabu Farms hosts solution summit

 

Rising from the 2021 Agriprenuership Summit organised for Nigerian youths, stakeholders in the agricultural sector have blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for the rising wave of insecurity, poverty, hunger and unemployment in the country.

The summit, held at the Agripreneur Academy, Shabu Farms, Kokoma-Keffi in Nasarawa State, was aimed at finding a quick solution to the problem, restructure the agric sector to meet the demands of the post-COVID-19 era.

After the summit there was a joint communiqué signed by representatives of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Deans of Agriculture in Nigerian Universities (ADAN) and the Agripreneur Academy, Keffi.

The academy is a unit within Shabu Integrated Farms, owned by Senator Abdullahi Adamu, chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture.

The summit noted that the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the major contributing factors to the observed rising levels of food insecurity, poverty, hunger and unemployment that are consequently resulting in serious disruptions in formal and informal services as well as industrial manufacturing and agricultural sectors.

To reverse this serious setback, they said countries and institutions would need to prepare a new post-COVID-19 recovery model anchored on new agricultural best practices in which unique paradigm of skills, technology, innovation and capital interplay are needed to ensure the development of new agribusiness models and products.

Part of the communiqué noted with concern that the “agriculture sector in Nigeria is presently held back and plagued by a preponderance of smallholder farmers with little access to agricultural inputs and markets, low level of investments and inadequate agribusiness skills, as well as an aging agricultural demography.

“There is, therefore, a compelling need to develop and groom a new crop of young agriculturists and agricultural entrepreneurs who can move the sector forward.”

The summit, however, acknowledged the efforts of national and sub-national governments in Nigeria, as well as international institutions that are working to reduce hunger and poverty by introducing and implementing innovative agricultural policies, programmess and initiatives, such as the Anchor Borrowers Programme, Youth in Agricbusiness, Start Them Early (STEP), among other programmes.

The summit also advocated the need to urgently attract the interest of youths in Nigeria to agriculture through “mechanisation of all the stages of the agricultural value chain, integration of the information and communication technology into agricultural practices for ease of adoption, and expand funding and financing opportunities in the agriculture and agribusiness sectors.”

To properly position agriculture in the post-COVID-19 era, the summit postulated that new policies, programmes and incentives should target the young, motivated and highly educated crop of agriculturists, who are skilled enough to understand the interplay of research, technology and innovation along the agricultural value chain.