Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo has disclosed the federal government readiness to partner with development bodies and private sectors to establish, promote and support special industrial processing zones across the country
He also highlighted plans to facilitate the review of the land act tenure, and implement the agro rangers project that will secure lives and investment of farmers across the country.
Professor Osinbajo stated this at the 2019 Agriculture Summit Africa, organised by Sterling Bank in collaboration with the World Bank and other stakeholders with the theme ‘Agriculture: Your piece of the Trillion -Dollar Economy’ in Abuja yesterday.
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According to him, “it is heartwarming that agriculture is fast becoming the most across trade and particularly in the face perennial dwindling prices and devaluation and attendant desire of to diversify the economy to boost the revenue base of the nation while endangering the food and agriculture production for the local and international market for foreign exchange earnings.
“The need to get everybody into agriculture has been one of the cardinal points of the Economy Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) of the FG with emphasis on developing and export-led economy.
“Government will promote and support special industrial processing zones with development partners such as African Development Bank (AFDB), implement agro rangers projects to ensure life and properties of farmers, facilitate the review of land act tenure system among others.”
Earlier in his welcome address, the Managing Director, Sterling Bank, Abubakar Suleiman said the bank had spent N55billion on three major crops in the last seven years.
” As an institution, we have done everything within our power to support the Agric sector, in committing resources to Agric but its not just the financial resources, is not about the 55billion that we have spent in the last 7 years on the three major crops, it is the fact that the human resources that we brought into Agriculture, the ideals we brought in, the partners that we brought together has finally opened up a more urgent conversation.” He stated.
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