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Written by Madu Onuorah, Abuja
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AS though to give meaning to the adage that poverty ends at the point where hunger is banished, Nigeria yesterday continued its search for more effective ways to cushion the effects of the current global economic recession by seeking to provide enough food for the citizens.
The country's planners, who met under the auspices of the National Economic Council (NEC) in Abuja, worked out measures to make agriculture attractive to enable the nation become self-sufficient in food production.
With a conclusion that more should be done to revolutionise agriculture, the Council approved a set of guidelines for the immediate release of the N200 billion voted for on-lending to commercial farmers.
The Council, chaired by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, which met at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, also resolved that the guidelines would be circulated to the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the next one week.
This will offer interested states and commercial farmers in the country the opportunity to look at the conditions and mode of accessing the fund purely for commercial agriculture.
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, along with Governors Adebayo Alao-Akala (Oyo), Martins Elechi (Ebonyi) and Minister of National Planning, Dr. Usman Shamsudeen, told journalists that the time had come for Nigeria to shift from the peasant farming techniques to large-scale farming to guarantee food security in the country.
Soludo said: "We have put together a special fund of N200 billion to be used for this particular purpose (commercial agriculture). And this is for lending to commercial farmers, large-scale commercial farms that will actually help us to meet the demands of the food requirements of the economy.
"Currently, the food crisis is about 20 per cent as at the last count. And agriculture holds the key for Nigeria to mitigate the effects of the global crisis both in terms of employment generation as well as in the area of food crisis and food security. The agricultural sector is now run by the peasant farmers. But for us to get to the level, we will really need large-scale farms. And that is what this N200 billion will be targeted at."
He said: "Today at NEC, we circulated these guidelines that will soon be issued for comments and inputs from members and they will be sending us their comments for us to incorporate. And in the next few days, it will be published in the newspapers for prospective beneficiaries to now indicate interest."
Alao-Akala said the Council's technical committee on the global economic meltdown had been transformed to a standing committee on excess crude and other related matters to avoid duplicity of duties.
He stated that the NEC also discussed the nagging problem of port congestion and noted that the meeting "took some decisions on port decongestion, which we believe progress is being made but we will properly be briefed at the next NEC to be held on May 12."
The Council was also briefed by Usman on the strategy being adopted by the Federal Government on the implementation of the Vision 20-2020, Alao-Akala said, adding that some states were advised to quickly put in place stakeholders' development committees.
Elechi said that states were encouraged to tap into the Galaxy Backbone to enhance the availability of information technology to them.
He explained that under the National Information Communication and Education Programme (NICEP), tapping into the Galaxy technology would further boost wide-scale networking in information and communications in the country.
In London, a policy document for a G-8 meeting on agriculture says global food production needs to double by 2050 to avert the risk of scarcity and high prices hurting international stability.
"Without immediate interventions in agriculture and agric-marketing systems, the 2007 crisis will become structural in only a few decades," Financial Times quoted the document as warning world leaders.
It said the document was drafted by the G-8's Italian presidency ahead of a meeting in Treviso later this month.
The group will include agriculture leaders from the United States of America (USA), Canada, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Russia.
Last year, the G-8 industrial nations met in Japan against the backdrop of spiralling food costs around the world.
The document says a further food crisis will have "serious consequences not merely on business relations but equally on social and international relations, which in turn will impact directly on the security and stability of world politics."
The meeting on April 18-20 was prompted by last year's price surges, which triggered riots and social unrest across a number of countries. Guardian Newspapers, Lagos
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