The African Development Bank yesterday said it would support Nigeria with about $30m reallocated fund to be used for an emergency food plan to produce in the dry season.
Speaking at a meeting with newsmen ahead of the bank’s 2022 annual meeting in Accra, Ghana, AfDB President, Akinwumi Adesina, said Nigeria would benefit significantly from the African Emergency Food Production Plan.
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He also said the AfDB would help Nigeria return to the electronic wallet system of input distribution to farmers to boost agricultural production.
The e-wallet system was introduced by Adesina when he was Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria.
The system allowed the government to register about 14.5 million farmers and reached them directly with inputs, notably seeds and fertilisers, via electronic coupons on their mobile phones.
“Nigeria needs to go back and use the electronic wallet system that I developed when I was a minister to get fertilisers straight to farmers and cut out all the middle men.
“We’re going to help the government to do that because when farmers have quality seeds and fertilisers, they can rapidly triple food production,” he said.
“In Nigeria, we’ve provided $540m dollars for special agro-industrial processing zones in seven states including the Federal Capital Territory.
“That’ll allow Nigeria to have special zones where you can have agro processing value addition and increased competitiveness of agriculture.
“We’re not alone, we put in $170m and others put in money such as the Islamic Development Bank and other partners,’’ he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the meetings is ‘Fostering Climate Resilience and a Just Energy Transition for Africa’. (NAN)
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