The Lagos State Project Coordinator for Commercial Agriculture, Mr Kehinde Ogunyinka has urged to government at all levels to support the nation’s agricultural sector with subsidised loans to the farmers in order to boost food production.
Ogunyinka made this appeal at the opening ceremony and public lecture of Totmak Farmers’ Centre Ota, in Ogun State.
According to him, subsidy for agricultural sector will not only ensure accelerated food production but also curtail the menace of illegal food importation across the borders by the smugglers.
At the public lecture tagged: ‘Emerging opportunities for more profits in Nigeria agribusiness,’ Ogunyinka said the country finds it difficult to feed her citizens today as a result of neglect of the agric sector by successive administrations over the years.
Past administrations, he stressed, paid lip service to the agricultural sector, a development which account for the uncompetitive nature of local farmers compared to their contemporaries abroad.
Ogunyinka stressed that if government can give adequate support to farmers, most food items and fruits that are being imported into the country will not only grow but flourish.
“If government can heavily subsidise agricultural sector, sincerely prices of food items will come down below whatever anybody can import. Instead of encouraging smugglers by saying we are banning importation of food items, we can subsidise food items. The price of internally produced food items would be lower and importation of food items would die a natural death,” he said.
Echoing similar sentiment, the Managing Director of Totmak Farmers’ Centre Ota, Dr Taiwo Makinde impressed on the Federal Government the need to encourage policies that can add value to the growth and improvement of agribusiness in the country as a whole.