National Co-ordinator of Micro Reforms for African Agribusiness (MIRA), Dr. Tony Bello, has urged the Federal Government to leverage on the $5.6 billion private sector investment commitments in the agricultural sector under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda to provide infrastructure for the development of agribusiness in Nigeria.
Bello who made the call on Tuesday in Abuja at the stakeholders consultative workshop on the Micro Reforms for African Agribusiness in Nigeria, said if the Federal Government fails to remove bottlenecks and impediments militating agribusinesses in the country, that the investment commitments by the private sector would not be realised.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government through the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) of the immediate past administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan attracted over $5.6 billion of private sector investments into agricultural sector over the past four years.
Bello, who is also an agribusiness expert, identified infrastructural deficit, affordable financing, security of supply of raw materials, inconsistent government policies and regulations, and inadequate human capital development as some of the constraints militating against agribusinesses in Nigeria.
Commenting on the launch of MIRA in Nigeria, he explained that the new initiative which is being implemented by Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa[AGRA] was designed to provide “African governments with access to high quality local and international technical assistance for identifying, prioritizing and reforming specific agricultural regulations that currently limit private sector investment in small and medium sized agribusinesses operating in smallholder agricultural value chains.”
Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sonny Echono, underscored the need to focus on fixing the agricultural value chains through targeted public-private investments to improve agricultural supply chain and logistics, food processing, access to affordable financing and building market linkages.
Echono represented by Director of Agribusiness and Marketing in the Ministry, Ohiare Jatto, assured that Nigeria would become an “agriculturally industrialised nation as well as a global power house in food production and agriculture” through public-private partnerships.
