Nigeria can achieve national food security and earn about N5tn
foreign exchange from agricultural exports as well as create massive employment
with the adoption of commercial agriculture, the General Manager, Shonga Farm
Holdings Limited, Mr. Adebayo Sangobiyi, has said.
In an interview with our correspondent in Ilorin, the Kwara
State capital, on Thursday, he said it was imperative to have a well-articulated
and strategic agricultural master plan that should be strictly implemented to
boost the nation’s agricultural transformation.
He canvassed the adoption of the Shonga Farm model as a national
agricultural strategy, stating that such a measure could make Nigeria compare
favourably with the United States and the United kingdom in agricultural
production and exports.
He said Nigeria’s food import bill of N717bn as of December
2013, according to a former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr
Akinwumi Adesina, was not cheering.
Sangobiyi said, “If we face agriculture squarely, there will be
industrialisation; with that, the economy will be transformed. Even at the
national level, the Gross Domestic Product will improve and we will do less of
importation.”
He stated that Shonga Farms had intensified its expansion
programme with the aim of reducing the food import dependency of Nigeria.
He said the concept of the farm was for them to understudy the
white farmers, adding that by the time they are big enough they should buy
them.
According to him, that explains why there is the Shonga Phase 2
which is called Alapa project.
“Our intention is to start the Alapa project with the indigenes.
I think Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has started it by selecting 10 farmers from
each of the 16 local government areas of the state.
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