Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Kashim Shettima, delivered a significant speech at the 2023 World Food Prize (WFP), underscoring Nigeria’s readiness to forge international partnerships with countries, international organizations, and private investors to bolster the nation’s agribusiness sector.
Speaking at the WFP assembly held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., Vice President Shettima stated that, under the leadership of President Tinubu, the Nigerian government has recognized the critical issues within the sector and has formulated short, medium, and long-term solutions to address them.
The Vice President emphasized that Nigeria is committed to achieving food and nutrition security to meet the needs of its more than 200 million citizens.
In his words, “My country, Nigeria, working in collaboration with strategic partners such as the African Development Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Islamic Development Bank, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has recently embarked on a journey towards attaining food and nutrition security for its over 200 million people.
“Our primary focus is on enhancing the capacity of our farmers to increase primary production while harnessing and deploying the economic power of agro-industrialization,” he added.
Vice President Shettima also mentioned that the government is collaborating with its existing partners to leverage intervention plans and industrial programs that will enhance food production in the country and transform the sector’s structure.
He explained that “the National Agriculture Growth Scheme (NAGS), the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), and the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) Program are all interventions that the government is working on with its partners to achieve immediate, medium, and long-term value.”