Presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Ahmed Bola Tinubu, has assured Nigerian farmers of his commitments to invest massively in the entire agricultural value chain if he is elected president next year.
Tinubu gave the assurance when he received farmers from the six geopolitical zones of the country at his campaign office in Abuja, noting that investment in the nation’s agricultural sector must be prioritized as Nigeria holds the key to global food crisis.
He expressed concern over the poor outputs suffered by Nigerian farmers, resulting to huge annual lost as against what their counterparts in other parts of the world get. This is as he noted that there were also plans to address marketing constraints to promote exports of agro products from Nigeria to part Europe.
He said: “The incoming Tinubu’s administration will invest massively in the entire agriculture value chain. The whole mantra is on increase in yield.
“The whole mantra is on increase in yield and we cannot achieve that without embracing or adopting intermediate and enhanced agriculture practice
We need to work as a people, as a family for the good of our people. We have a problem of poverty and inequality in Nigeria and Nigerian has no reason to be poor because ours is one the big oil and gas nation blessed with tremendous arable land with tremendous solid minerals buried under the soil.
“Not only tin and columbite in Plateau and in Nasarawa where you are tilling the soil, they have plenty of mineral resources too. Most importantly, we have the human resources, we have the market to sell our products.”
Earlier in his presentation, leader of the team, Mr. Retson Tedheke, who also doubled as the National Coordinator, Nigerian Famers Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS) said their core objective is to encourage more youths to go into agriculture but government at all levels must be willing to commit more resources into the sector by providing better incentives for young farmers to make agriculture more attractive to them.
He however promised to team up with his colleagues in the sector to mobilise thousands of youths across rural communities in the country for the actualisation of the Tinubu-Shettima presidential project.
“We have the strength, we have the energy, we have the capacity, age is on our side and we will do,” said Retson.
