Nigeria’s food policy harmful to agriculture sector, warns Adesina

The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group Dr. Akinwumi Adesina says the decision by Nigeria’s government to allow massive food importation risks destroying the country’s agriculture.

This follows the announcement by Nigeria’s Minister for Agriculture Abubakar Kyari on July 10 that the Federal Government would suspend duties, tariffs, and taxes on the importation of maize, husked brown rice, wheat, and cowpeas through the country’s land and sea borders, for 150 days.

“Nigeria’s recently announced policy to open its borders for massive food imports, just to tackle short-term food price hikes, is depressing,” Adesina told African Primates of the Anglican Church at a Retreat in Abuja, Nigeria, on Friday.

He warned that the policy could undermine all the hard work and private investments that have gone into Nigeria’s agriculture sector.

“Nigeria cannot rely on the importation of food to stabilize prices. Nigeria should be producing more food to stabilize food prices, while creating jobs and reducing foreign exchange spending, that will further help stabilize the Naira,” he said.

Speaking on the theme ‘Food security and financial sustainability in Africa: The role of the Church’, Adesina asserted that west African nation “must feed itself with pride,” warning: “A nation that depends on others to feed itself, is independent only in name.”

The clergymen assembled in Abuja under the umbrella of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA), representing more than 40 million Anglicans across the continent.

Noting that Africa accounts for nearly a third of the more than 780 million people worldwide who are hungry, the AfDB president said agriculture is critical for the diversification of economies, and for the transformation of rural areas, where over 70 percent of the population of Africa live.

“It is clear therefore that unless we transform agriculture, Africa cannot eliminate poverty,” he insisted.

Adesina highlighted that Africa has 65 percent of the uncultivated arable land left in the world, to feed 9.5 billion people by 2050. Therefore, what Africa does with agriculture will determine the future of food in the world, he underscored.

“Essentially, food is money. The size of the food and agriculture market in Africa will reach $1 trillion by 2030.”

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