The International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD) has said Africa spends $35 billion on food
importation yearly.
IFAD made
this known in a statement to reporters in Abuja. The statement quoted its
President Mr. Kanayo Nwanze as saying this at the opening of a three-day
‘African Union-European Union Conference of Ministers of Agriculture’.
The
conference tagged: ‘Investing in a food secure future’ was convened by the
Government of The Netherlands to discuss how to deepen cooperation between
Africa and Europe to mutually invest in food and nutrition security.
Nwanze said
investing more in Africa’s rural areas will stem the flow of economic migrants
and minimise the acts of desperation that makes the continent’s newspaper
headlines.
His words:
“People are leaving the rural areas of Africa because they can’t find jobs or
feed their families and the ripple effects are felt here in Europe. The irony
is that Africa spends $35 billion a year on food importation; it is time to
stop creating jobs in other countries and redirect that investment to their own
agricultural transformation.”
Nwanze added that Africa had
enormous potentials and contained half of the world’s uncultivated land
suitable for growing food crops, and that only five per cent of it was
irrigated.
The IFAD
president said Africa could easily double its productivity in the next five
years simply by making better use of its existing farmland.
He
explained that this could turn farming into a sustainable and profitable
business and lift millions of rural Africans out of poverty.
Nwanze
added that lifting millions out of poverty would make migration a choice rather
than a necessity.
Culled from The
Nation Newspaper
No comments:
Post a Comment