Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Sabo Nanono, has said President Muhammadu Buhari signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, AfCFTA, in order to create market for Nigeria’s farm produce.
Nanono said this at the opening of 2019 Agricultural Technical Training organised by Green Agriculture West Africa Limited and sponsored by the Chinese Embassy in Abuja.
Nanono was represented at the event by Alhaji Muyi Azeez, Director of Agriculture, Processing and Marketing in the Ministry.
“Government will not only support Agriculture, we will also continue to support marketing. We are determined to link the farmers to the market. This is the reason President Muhammadu Buhari signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.
“We are delighted to have this training, we are also excited that this training is coming at a time when Nigeria has just signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).
“There is no doubt that this training will help us in improving our productivity, improving our production, so that Nigeria will have a better comparative advantage and be able to take advantage of the AfCFTA.
“Let me emphasise that as government, we will continue to support the farmers’ access to input, such as fertilizers, seeds, agro-chemicals and mechanisation in other to ensure that we continue to produce at a cheaper price to ensure food security for Nigeria.
“We will also continue to support storage to ensure that we will be able to reduce post harvest losses, this will enable the farmers to enjoy a very high return in terms of their labour.
“This is in view of promoting the diversification agenda of the current administration as contained in the Economy Recovery and Growth Plan.”
While noting that the training would improve productivity in the sector, the minister charged participants to cascade the knowledge gained down the line.
Mr Wang Jun, Managing Director of Green Agriculture West Africa Ltd, said that the company, established in 2006 had invested in a mechanised demonstration farm in Kebbi.
He said it was with the aim of building platform for China-Africa agricultural cooperation.
“In the past years, we have made certain efforts in the investment and development of Nigeria agriculture,” he said.
Jun said that so far, no fewer than 500 Nigerians were trained on new agricultural technology which had improved agricultural production.
“With the strong support from the Chinese and Nigeria governments over the past three years, we have undertaken five agricultural technical training programme and have trained more than 500 Nigerian agriculture technical officers and farm leaders.
“So, in the next six days, 40 participants from State government and federal government will have the opportunity to discuss rice breeding, rice seedling production, machinery operation, plant pest control and prevention by our experts.”
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