Senate to establish Agricultural Development Fund

The the National Assembly on Wednesday considered a bill which seeks to establish an Agricultural Development Fund, which will make available funds for the sector to do better and thrive.

This is even as the President of the Senate, Dr Ahmed Lawan, explained that agriculture remains a viable means for employment creation in Nigeria.

Lawan stated this against the backdrop of a bill under consideration by the National Assembly seeking to establish a development for the Agric sector.

According to him, substantial investment in the sector by the Federal Government would guarantee food security for the country.

“The agricultural sector remains unarguably the most viable means of ensuring that we create employment opportunities and that we create wealth for our people as well.

“If there is anything that needs to be done to enhance this sector, we should do so”, the Senate President said. Earlier, sponsor of the bill, Senator Abdullahi Adamu (APC – Nasarawa West), leading debate on the bill said that “the current contribution of the agricultural sector to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stands at 15-20 per cent with the potential for improvement through the implementation and sustenance of appropriate intervention programmes, policies and enabling law.

According to the lawmaker, in spite of the policies and enabling laws, the utilization of arable land in the country is only forty per cent, and agriculture largely subsistence with minimal value addition.

“It will be difficult to achieve agricultural productivity and value addition required for industrial development without sustainable funding.

The fact that the current budgetary system will continue to be improved but it will be insufficient to generate the necessary transformation in the agricultural sector,” Adamu said.

The lawmaker noted, “One of the first steps that need to be taken to ensure adequate funding for the agricultural sector is the enactment of this bill in order to pave way for the creation of a mega-agency to manage viable and sustainable sources of agricultural financing.”

He added that the bill when passed into law, would give legal backing to the establishment of the Agricultural Development Fund, and will complement other funding development opportunities at the international and regional levels”, he said.