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FG should formulate good agro-business policies – Ahmed

By BusinessNews Staff on March 21, 2014

The Kwara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed has urged the Federal Government to urgently formulate special financial policy that supports development of agro-businesses in the country.

Ahmed stated this in his contribution at an Aid and Development Roundtable in Washington, DC, according to a statement on Thursday by his Chief Press Secretary, Abdulwahab Oba. The governor stated that the agro-business economy is being constrained largely by an unfavourable financial policy that does not take cognisance of gestation periods of agricultural produce.

He called on Northern Governors to collaborate with the Federal Government to come up with the right policy to drive agriculture in the country.

He also urged the United States Agency for International Development and other international aid agencies to quickly intervene in the areas of irrigation, agriculture inputs and manpower development.

“If adequately harnessed, an agro-business driven economy, especially in the north, can generate more than 25 million jobs within the next five years.

“Apart from reviving the comatose industries in the north, transforming the lives of rural dwellers, reducing youth restiveness, an agro-based economy has the inherent potential to improve the country’s foreign earnings for the much needed infrastructure development.”

“Today the North has the highest proportion of Nigerians living in poverty, the highest number of school age girls not attending school and the largest component of Nigeria’s unemployed youth.”

He said the average poverty rate of the states in the North-West geopolitical zone remained the highest at 71.4 per cent.
According to him, available records from the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that North-East has 69.1 per cent while North Central has 60.7 per cent.

[Punch]

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