Gilbert Ekugbe
The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) has extolled the President’s directive to resuscitate the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) that would reinvigorate the food system and accelerate the attainment of food security in Nigeria.
In a statement, AFAN’s National President, Mr. Kabir Ibrahim, explained that the obvious deliverables in the resuscitation of NFRA would also resuscitate the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), which would enhance agribusiness especially against the backdrop of AfCFTA that would bring about a sustainable foreign exchange income to Nigeria and Nigerian farmers going forward.
He said the need for the attainment of food sufficiency by the same token in all African countries, in anticipation of the exponential rise in Africa’s population that would see Nigeria as the third most populous country in the world with a population of 400,000,000 by 2050, will make the quest for food almost existential for Nigeria and by implication all of Africa as Nigeria is the giant of Africa.
According to him, in 2008, NFRA was created as a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) with the mandate to drive the National Food Security Programme in Nigeria upon the recommendation of CADP-NEPAD (Commercial Agricultural Development Project – New Partnership for Africa’s Development) which came about as a result of the buy-in of African Heads of States in 2001 in the Moputo Declaration, specifically, in compliance with four pillars: Production, Processing, Storage and Marketing.
He stressed that vision of NFRA was to ensure sustainable access, availability and affordability of quality food to all Nigerians and for Nigeria to become a significant net provider of food to the global community.
He added that its mission in the short term was to significantly improve Nigeria’s Agricultural productivity and expand and improve large scale production, increase storage/processing capacity as well as required infrastructure to achieve food stability in the medium term
