By Victoria Onehi
The Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, CON, has advocated for National Agriculture Data Centre to attract investors to enhance Food and Nutrition Security in Nigeria.
The Minister gave this indication during the meeting with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) delegation led by the Director, Office of Emergency & Resilience, Mr. Rein Paulsen in Abuja, recently.
He stated that the data governing system would attract and encourage investors, noting that such data would help to define farm types and enable the Ministry know where farms exist.
The Minister in. statement by the Ministry harped on the need to actualise the National Agricultural Data in Nigeria in the next two years and pointed out that the present Administration was fully committed to making sure that Nigeria was Food Secured which was the reason for bringing Food Security to the front burner.
He pointed out that Nigeria has 70% of arable land and yet some number of people are not food secured, noting that it is worrisome.
The Minister emphasised that, the Ministry had already started taking action to create the enabling environment to make investors entry easier with the focus to ease their businesses, pointing out that by the time investors come in, it would enhance self-sufficiency, create job opportunities, inclusiveness of youths and women amongst others.
Sen. Abdullahi commended FAO for their long standing partnership with the Ministry in the area of technical capacity, wide network amongst others, adding that Countries had drawn from FAO’s global experiences.
In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr. Ernest Umakhihe reiterated FAO’s support in achieving the Ministry’s mandate.
He called on FAO to revisit the quarterly meetings usually held in the Ministry to bring the issues again to the front burner.
Speaking earlier, the Director, Office of Emergency & Resilience, FAO, Headquarters, Rome, Mr. Rein Paulsen revealed that their aim was to follow up on what FAO was doing in Nigeria, with a view to determining what they can do more, to support the FAO Nigeria office to address it in the right way, focusing on enhancing resilience around it, rather than systematic approach.
FAO of the United Nations is a specialised agency that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security.
