Nigerian agriculture minister Akinwumi Adesina said that Africa’s future billionaires and millionaires will make their money from agriculture
Nigerian Agriculture Minister Akinwumi Adesina predicts a new generation
of young, wealthy Africans. (Image source: World Economic Forum/Flickr)
The 2013 Forbes African of the Year urged young
Africans to see agriculture as a business, rather than a development tool and
predicted the advent of a young, prosperous middle class across the continent.
Adesina’s comments came at the launch of the
Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program Phase 1 (ATASP-1) in Abuja,
a scheme aimed at creating a new generation of agricultural entrepreneurs in
Nigeria.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has agreed to
contribute US$170mn to the initiative, which will be rolled out in Enugu,
Anambra, Niger, Kebbi, Sokoto, Kano and Jigawa States, and will aim to boost
annual food crop yields by 20,000 metric tonnes (mt) as well as creating around
200,000 new jobs.
“The engine of growth with the greatest power to
spur Africa into global value chains and create jobs for inclusive growth is
agriculture,” said Adesina. “Africa’s wealth is more than petroleum. It is now
time to unlock Africa’s soil wealth via agriculture.”
The minister said that agricultural infrastructure
would be clustered into Staple Crops Processing Zones (SCPZs), in which the
government would increase the availability of water, electricity, roads and
fuel supplies.
Private sector agribusinesses will be provided with
incentives to establish food-processing companies in rural areas, he added, in
a move aimed at increasing the value of Nigeria’s agricultural produce.
Adesina also claimed the agricultural insurance
markets will be reformed with a view to allowing greater participation of
private sector insurance companies, while the National Agricultural Insurance
Company (NAIC) will introduce new schemes aimed at providing affordable crop
insurance to five million farmers.
