Kwara State governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has proffered solutions on how to boost agricultural production in Nigeria insisting that only a multi-dimensional approach with the federal government playing the leading role would revamp the sector.

Ahmed in a recent interview with African Examiner in Washington DC urged the federal government to dedicate a chunk of crude oil revenue to funding 
agriculture while other stakeholders would encourage to evolve related projects to complement government efforts.

He also advocated what he called the "return to the soil" as a veritable means of boosting the sector which was the main stay of Nigeria's economy in the 1950's.

The governor further lamented the neglect of the agricultural sector, which earned the needed foreign exchange for Nigeria during the first republic.

"At independence, we are agrarian economy but with advent of crude oil everything unfortunately changed. We should have used the revenue from crude oil to support and develop agriculture beyond what we have now" he argued.

According to him, crude oil based economy is no more sustainable stressing that only agriculture based economy  can create a long lasting development and employment for the youths.

"In the 60's our agriculture was largely export based. So the opportunity we should have gotten from the money from oil should have seen us creating strong agro-economy. But unfortunately we jettison agriculture and create a taste for finished foreign products and that has taken its tolls on Nigeria.

"But as it is today the global melt down has brought some reality to us that money from crude driven economy is not sustainable we must go back to the soil especially with our growing population, high level of employment, high level of insecurity especially for the youths, making clear that we must develop agriculture" he stated.

The governor  also disclosed that Kwara state  is leading the way in the country in ensuring that youths see agriculture as a platform to be self-independent and create wealth, even as he added that his government is providing necessary wherewithal to ensure that those who are into subsistent farming are supported to become commercial farmers.

Ahmed was one of the five governors who recently attended a specialized agriculture conference in Washington, DC where he also bagged an award for his outstanding leadership in Agricultural Development in 2011.