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Tag: Dr. Akinwumi Adesina

  • ‘Minister lacks power to grant duty waivers’

    ‘Minister lacks power to grant duty waivers’

    • Reps seek review of rice policy

    The House of Representatives yesterday said the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina lacked the power under Nigeria’s constitution to allocate rice import or production quota to any company and then waive duties.

    The lower legislative chmber argued that the  revenue lost to waivers is for the entire federation which consists of the three tiers of governmen.

    At the commencement of an investigative hearing of the Leo Ogor-led ad hoc Committee on Rice Import Quota and Duty Payments yesterday, the lawmakers were told how the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development approved waivers for some categories of rice millers and traders without due process.

    Chairman of the Committee said: “It is embarrassing not to implement government policy after six months. “Letter was sent to Customs in July and approval did not come until December. That is not good for a government that intend to grow local capacity.

    “It is the duty of this Committee to see to it that this rice policy achieved its purpose because importers took advantage of dichotomy on duty between brown rice and polished rice to undermine the policy.

    “We have to invite the Minister of Agriculture on where he derives power to grant waivers. The minister doesn’t have the powers to allocate rice import or production quota to any company and then waive duties because the corresponding revenue involved is for the entire federation which consists of the three tiers of government.”

    In the light of this, the lawmakers have called for the review of Federal Government’s 2014-2017 fiscal measures on rice.

    The lawmakers said the policy that was intended to create consumption sufficiency as well as develop domestic rice production has been exposed to manipulation by industry players.

    The Federal Governemnt’s indifferent attitude to the policy gave room for the manipulation of the policy, the lawmakers said.

    Consequently, the Ministers of Finance, Dr Ngozi Oknojo-Nweala and Dr. Adesina have been summoned to explain their roles in the manipulation of the rice policy.

    Adesina was to explain where he derived some powers he wielded over the policy.

    The Committee was also informed how a government policy that was approved in July last year was not accompanied with requisite instruments for implementation untill six months after.

    During the submission of Olams Farms Ltd, it was discovered that the company overshot its import quota and failed to pay N3. 6billion as duty.

    The company said it was willing to pay if that was the decision of governemnt.

    On the other hand, another major player, Popular Foods claimed that it imported 564,609 metric tons of rice rather than the approved 85.000 tons.

    The company said it imported the excess in anticipation of the approval.

    The Committee however asked the company if it was its duty to determine what should be allocated to it and others.

    In response, the firm said no but argued that it was not satisfied with the 85,000 metric tonns it was eventually allocated.

    While an indigenous company, Ebony Agro Industries Ltd also imported 10,000 tons of rice above its official allocation, Flourmill was commended for being law abiding by not importing rice before allocation  approval was released.

    In response to the Committee’s question,  the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) said the government policy was approved in July 2014 but back dated to June.

    According to Customs, allocation and beneficiaries of the policy were not sent to it till December 2014 despite several entreaties to the Finance and Agriculture  Ministries.

    NCS explained that the new policy created too much confusion as it opened avenues for manipulation by investors.

    As a result of the lacuna created by the confusion and lack of quota allocation, NCS resorted to corporate indemnity for the rice millers and traders, while those found to have exceeded their quota would have to pay duty on imports above their official allocation.

    Hearing continues today.

  • Adesina gets award

    Adesina gets award

    The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) has honoured the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, in Johannesburg, South Africa, with an award of recognition.

    FARA, in a statement in Abuja by the Director of Information and Protocol, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Tony Ohaeri, said the award was in recognition of the minister’s role towards sustainable funding for agricultural research and development and his leadership of agricultural development.

    The award was one of the main events, which marked FARA’s 15th anniversary, titled: “CELEBRATE FARA: Delivering Africa’s future through science-led agricultural transformation.”

    The Executive Director of FARA, Dr. Yemi Akinbamijo, said the minister was being honoured for championing agricultural investments in one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, implementing policy reforms and pursuing innovative agricultural investment programmes to expand opportunities for the private sector, thereby moving agriculture away from a development programme to a business issue.

    He said Dr. Adesina until his appointment, was the Vice President responsible for policy and partnership at the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), where he fostered cooperation among African governments, donors, farmers’ organisations and the private sector to stimulate agricultural growth and unlock new opportunities for farmers.

    The minister thanked the executive directors of FARA for the honour and promised to work with others to ensure that Africa achieves the 2030 target of food security on the continent.

    He advocated the creation of inclusive market for  practitioners in the agricultural sector, stressing that there was need for a percentage of funding in agriculture to be set aside for women, who constituted the majority of farmers in the rural areas and who research proved paid back loans.

    Adesina said the issue in agriculture was not the amount of money invested by the governments.

    The issue, he said, was how the money was spent, adding that corruption in the public sector must be eliminated and replaced with efficiency.

    The minister urged banks to play an active role in agriculture.

     

  • Food import bill declines to N466b, says Fed Govt

    Food import bill declines to N466b, says Fed Govt

    • Agric sector attracts $5.6b

    The Federal Government has said the country’s food import bill has declined to N466 billion in the last three years.

    The government also said the agricultural sector added N780billion to the economy during the same period.

    The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, who spoke in Abuja during the inauguration of the first commercial 10 per cent composite cassava flour product from Flour Mills of Nigeria and the Honeywell Group.

    He said: “Our food import bill declined from N1.1trillion in 2011 to N634billion by the end of 2013 and it continues to decline.

    “Our farmers are seeing the benefits and they are producing more food. Our national food production expanded by an additional 21 million metric tons of food within three years, this is a record in our nation’s history.”

    At the event, equipment that will enable bakers raise the bar of cassava inclusion to 20 per cent and beyond were inaugurated.

    Adesina also said Nigeria’s bread  contains cassava flour, adding that all cakes and confectioneries eaten in the country now contain cassava flour.

    He said: “With today’s momentous events, the landscape of cassava in Nigeria has been changed forever.  “No more will cassava be seen as a subsistence crop for household and village-level processing. Cassava has become the raw material of choice for the burgeoning bread flour, sweetener, starch, and ethanol market.’’

    Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Sunday Echono, said  the actualisation of the 20 per cent cassava flour in wheat for bread will save Nigeria N127billion yearly.

    Echono also said it would create 1.3 million jobs which would help to grow rural agro industries.

    “Apart from this, about 1.3 million jobs will be created. In the process, we shall grow the rural agro industries, at the same time increase processing activities and our farmers’ livelihood would have been highly improved and the nation will ultimately be better off for it,” he said.

    He said in the past two years, the sector has attracted $5.6 billion in investment.

    Speaking at a conference/exhibition, titled, Agra Innovate by Informa/Afrocet in Lagos, he said the sector has also received good financial assistance from the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), the United Kingdom Department for International Development, United States Agency for International Development, United Nations Development Programme, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

    He also said in three years, food production rose by 21 million metric tonnes, ahead of the four-year target of 20 million MT by 2015. Quoting the National Bureau of Statistics, Akinwunmi said food imports declined from N 1.1 trillion ($ 6.7 billion) in 2009 to N684 billion ($4.35 billion) last yaer.

    He said: “The latest release by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics shows that the agriculture sector grew by 9.19 per cent (Year-on-Year) in Q3 of 2014, up by 2.72 percentage points from Q3 of 2013. The agriculture sector grew by 38.53 per cent (quarter-on-quarter basis) in Q3 of 2014, with crop production being the main driver with a growth of 43.50 per cent.

    “For too long, Africa has depended on food imports, spending a whopping $35 billion on food imports yearly. This makes no sense. Africa must end the era of prodigal economics, where it ignores its own agricultural potential and turns itself into a net food importing region.

  • Adesina for agric exhibition tomorrow

    Adesina for agric exhibition tomorrow

    AGRICULTURE Minister Dr Akinwumi Adesina has given his nod to attend  the Agra Innovative Nigeria exhibitionand conference  billed to hold between tomorrow and Wednesday  at the Landmark Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.

    He is expected to give the opening keynote address to kick off the two-day ceremony. In a speech during a visit by the officials of the organisers Infomat  in his office in Abuja, the minister was quoted as saying: “The Nigeria Government and, indeed, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan  supports ‘Agra Innovate Nigeria’ and we look forward to seeing Nigeria’s agribusiness represented at the ceremony.’’

    Informat’s Project Director David Ross said his firm is the lead exhibitor in the West African sub-region, adding that it is also  global keyplayer in the sector. He said the forum would provide an opportunity for stakeholders in the agricultural sector free access to a vibrant exhibition of latest technology. He said leading Nigerian companies, such as Swiss Biostadt, Dizengoff and other firms from Germany, Spain, Canada, Turkey, India, South Africa were being expected at the event.

    He is optimistic that the forum would help to boost the transformation agenda of the Jonathan government in agriculture.

  • Rice, maize, others contribute N778b to revenue

    Rice, maize, others contribute N778b to revenue

    Nigeria realised N778 billion as revenue from five crops under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda, the Federal Government has said.

    It listed the crops as maize, rice, cassava, sorghum and soya bean. The ATA was inaugurated in 2012 by President Goodluck Jonathan.

    The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, broke the news in Abuja during a public affairs forum organized by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs.

    He said the country made N259 billion from the production of maize, N407 billion from rice, N94 billion from cassava, N5 billion  from sorghum and N13 billion from soya bean.

    Adesina said the government was able to put an end to 40 years of corruption in the fertilizer sector.

    This, he said, was a development that impacted positively in the production of various agricultural crops.

    Dr. Adesina said: “The old system of government direct procurement and distribution of fertilizer was corrupt. Between 1980 and 2010, over N873bn ($5.4bn) was spent on fertilizer subsidies. No more than 11 per cent of farmers received these fertilizers.

    “Over N776bn ($4.8bn) was estimated to have been lost to corruption or an average of N26bn ($162.5m) annually. The system displaced the private sector and Nigerian farmers lost dignity.”

    He said the government built a national database of 10.5 million farmers with participation in every state of the federation.

    Adesina observed that the Growth Enhancement Scheme initiative for Nigerian farmers had increased the number of farmers who get fertilizers from 11 per cent before the programme to 92 per cent.

    “1.3 million metric tons of fertilizer has been delivered to farmers. 55,000 metric tons of improved seeds have been delivered to farmers. Nigeria is the first in Africa to deliver inputs to farmers in a large scale through e-wallet.

    “Also, food imports declined by 38 per cent from N1.1tn in 2009 to N635bn in 2013,” he added.

  • $1.6b invested in rice sector, says Fed Govt

    Nigeria’s rice sector
    has attracted $1.6billion in the last three years, the Federal Government has said.

    The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, who spoke in Abuja during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Bank of Industry (BoI) to build rice and cassava mills across Nigeria, the President of Dangote Group invested over N165billion in the sector.

    He said: “Within a three-year period, we have been able to attract $1.6bn of investment into the rice sector. The largest one being Aliko Dangote that has put up over N165billion, which is $1billion into commercial rice production and also commercial rice milling.

    “I have no doubt that within three years, Nigeria will be exporting rice just like Thailand and India and that is exactly the way it should be. However, we notice that as we have been producing a lot of rice we don’t have enough mills to mill the rice.”

    He said the country lacked integrated rice mills to mill the locally produced rice to global standard.

    Akinwumi said it was very important for Nigeria to close its milling gap and to achieve this, the country has to build integrated rice mills.

     

  • FG, NB sign MoU on accelerated hybrid sorghum development

    FG, NB sign MoU on accelerated hybrid sorghum development

    The Federal Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Nigeria Breweries Plc to collaborate on the development and commercialisation of hybrid sorghum as part of its sustainability program.

    The government said that despite Nigeria being the largest producer of food sorghum in the world, the country is yet to reap the benefits of using it for the production of high energy food as it is been done by other countries.

    The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, said this on Friday in Abuja during the signing of the signing ceremony on the “development and commercialisation of hybrid sorghum.”

    He added that the fastest way for Nigeria to unlock the potentials in sorghum is to turn it into other values that people can use.

    He disclosed that the ministry reached 96,000 sorghum farmers in 2013 with improved inputs, seeds and fertilizers in other to enhance the development of the value chain, adding that the ministry will scale up the access to about 2.5 million farmers in the North that will grow sorghum.

    The minister said, “We (Nigeria) are the largest producer of food sorghum in the world which means we should use them. We are not doing well in adding values to what we have been blessed with. Sorghum remains a low value crop that people use.

    “The fastest way to unlock those potentials is to turn sorghum into other values that people use. We must add value to every single thing that we have. We will provide financing for them to improve inputs, seeds and fertilizers.

    “What we want to do is make sure that Nigeria doesn’t import high energy food. High energy food is what we need to eradicate malnutrition in Africa. That is why Dansa Foods is setting up high energy food in Nigeria at a cost of $54 million.”

    Earlier, the Chairman of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Chief Kola Jamodu, said the company had invested heavily in the research and development of hybrid sorghum.

    According to him, this will improve the productivity of sorghum through the breeding and selection programs.

    He expressed optimism that the partnership with the ministry will further expand and strengthen the company’s efforts in developing the sorghum value chain in Nigeria.

     

  • Govt saves N127b from cassava flour, says Adesina

    Govt saves N127b from cassava flour, says Adesina

    Nigeria saves N127billion annually by adding 20 per cent of high quality cassava flour in making bread, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has said.

    Adesina spoke at a training conducted for master bakers on the inclusion of 20 per cent High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) at the Garden City Bakery, Port- Harcourt.

    In a statement in Abuja by the Ministry’s Director of Information and Protocol, Tony Ohaeri, the minister explained that the use of HQCF will create more jobs for the youth and help farmers to build up domestic wealth.

    Adesina, who was represented by the Regional Director, Southsouth, Mr. Martins Odeh said the training was to empower the participants on the inclusion of 20 per cent HQCF in making bread.

    He urged participants to make use of the opportunity and learn how to use the recipe since Nigeria is a top producer of cassava and not a high consumer.

    Adesina emphasised the need to reduce the level of unemployment and the need to reduce the foreign- exchange used for the importation of wheat into the Country, so as to build up Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP).

  • ‘Private sector investment in agric hits $5.6b’

    ‘Private sector investment in agric hits $5.6b’

    The Federal Government yesterday said it has attracted $5.6billion investment from the private sector to agriculture in four years.

    The government said it developed the agricultural value chains to promote the investments.

    It also said it would continue to develop innovative policies and institutions that would expand opportunities for the private sector.

    Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, who spoke yesterday at the launch of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda Policy Working Group in Abuja, said the group would document the agricultural policies of the government and institutionalise it.

    He said: “The private sector has woken up to see agriculture as the new wealth sector. Between 2011 and 2014, the agriculture sector attracted over $5.6 billion of private sector investments.

    “Private sector investments in fertiliser manufacturing have also expanded, with $5 billion of private sector investments in fertiliser manufacturing within the past three years.

    “To drive this new approach, we decided to focus on promoting investments and development of agricultural value chains. Not only would we produce more food, we would add value to all the commodities, all across the agricultural value chains.”

    According to the minister, government must boldly support their farmers through sustainable and subsidised subsidies.

    “Nigeria cannot become a museum of poverty. Poverty is not tradable and is not an industry, so we must not grow poverty.

    “What is important is to develop ways of effectively targeting support to reach farmers, while ensuring that the private sector, not the government, delivers farm inputs to farmers.”

    Dr. Akinwumi added that the Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reduced the risk in banks’ lending for farmers and increased the lending rate to farmers across the country.

  • Nigeria earns $900m from cocoa export, says Adesina

    Nigeria earns $900m from cocoa export, says Adesina

    Nigeria has earned $900 million from local cocoa production, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has said.

    Adesina said the rate of locally produced cocoa grew from 250, metric tonns (Mt) in 2011 to 370, 000 Mt in 2013.

    He said a global company, Hersey, is investing $20 million to procure cocoa from over 20, 000 certified cocoa farmers across the country.

    On rice production, the minister said with additional 4.3 million Mt, Nigeria is on course to be self sufficient in 2015.

    “The cocoa revolution in Nigeria is receiving global attention. Nigeria’s cocoa production grew from 250,000 Mt in 2011 to 370,000 Mt by 2013, and our cocoa exports earned over $900 million.

    “Hershey, a global company, has invested $20 million to procure cocoa from over 20,000 certified cocoa farmers.

    “We will soon launch the Cocoa Corporation of Nigeria, a privately run commodity board, which will further spur growth and investment in the cocoa sector, including cocoa investment funds to boost local processing and value addition,” Adesina was quoted to have said in a statement in Abuja yesterday.

    The minister also said Dansa Foods is committing $35 million to establish tomato processing plants in the country.

    According to him, the Federal Government is providing nine million high yielding seedlings to small holder farmers and plantation estates in the country to improve oil palm production.