Agric as Panacea to Insecurity
Date: 2011-12-15
Agriculture has been identified as the only panacea to the current security challenge and sustainable development in the country.
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture, Hon. Thair Monguno made this assertion at Government House, Ilorin, the Kwara State Capital yesterday when he led other members of his committee on a courtesy visit to the State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed.
The Chairman, who stressed the need for government at all levels to take the issue of agriculture seriously as a viable alternative to oil and check the menace of youth restiveness, praised the Kwara state government for its agricultural transformation, particularly the Shonga Commercial farming project, which he said should be copied by other States.
Agriculture, Monguno observed, is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy which contributed about 45% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employed about 70% of the population, adding that it should not be relegated to the background.
While urging State governments across the country to emulate the Kwara success story on commercial farming, Hon. Monguno said all hands must be on deck to make sure that agriculture is given the prominence it deserves for sustainable development and the much desired economic transformation.
Agriculture, if properly harnessed, Monguno argued has the potential of providing employment to the teeming youths, who constitutes security threats to the country owing to the high rate of unemployment.
Responding, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, who thanked members of the committee for living up to their responsibilities, commended the Federal Government for its renew efforts at evolving policies that would put agriculture into a major front burner to drive the national economy.
Majority of Nigerians, the Governor said, live in the rural areas and are predominantly engaged in subsistence farming, hence the urgent need to evolve aggressive policies supported with a strong incentive on tariff that will stimulate the economy to move it from the present subsistence level to an agro-driven economy.
Alhaji Ahmed specifically called for Federal Government’s intervention through the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to combat the problem of irrigation, which he noted, had prevented an all-year-round farming in majority of the farming communities.
The governor equally advised the Federal Government to support agriculture with an incentive tariff regime to take it to the desired level and encourage commercial farming in the country.
The committee is currently in the State as part of its oversight functions to see the level of project execution in the agriculture sector and possible areas of challenges that may require Federal Government’s intervention.
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