President Bola Tinubu, says food security is affected by bad
governance which has led to conflicts and political instability in some of the
African countries.
Tinubu spoke at a high-level event held on the sidelines of
the 78th United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.
The event was themed, 'Attracting Investments in Land
Restoration, Food Systems, and Rural Transformation in Africa'.
The conference was aimed at exploring innovative solutions, investment opportunities, and partnerships to enhance productivity, resilience, and sustainability in African agriculture, focusing on smallholder farmers.
Speaking at the event, Tinubu said another factor affecting
food security is limited access to financing as only 300 out of the 774 local
government areas in Nigeria have bank branches.
The president, represented by Abdulaziz Yar'Adua, senator
representing Katsina central district, said there is an utmost need for
smallholder farmers in Nigeria and Africa to access financing to ensure food
security.
"Some small farm holders travel sometimes up to 200
kilometres to be able to access finance, infrastructure gaps with some rural
farmers not having good access roads to be able to evacuate their produce to
the markets and absence of technology in most of the rural communities which
they can leverage to their advantage to sell their produce," the
politician said.
"Others are inconsistencies in policies that affect
land tenure, land reformation, and agriculture itself, cumbersome regulatory
processes, which can also frustrate
international finance institutions' assistance in
agricultural production in most of the African countries.
"This event is quite important for Nigeria as it
affects rural farmers in our communities. So it is important to attract
financing, and investment and also ensure that certain processes are put in
place so that our rural farmers can have a very good harvest.
"We're doing everything possible in Nigeria to ensure
that all the things that are needed within the agriculture value chain are
provided to the farmers.
"This event and this session that I attended, which
involves attracting international financing, is to ensure that our rural
farmers are given access to finance."
Tinubu, therefore called on investors to recognise not only
Nigeria but also African countries to see how they can bring their financing to
help in assisting rural farmers gain access to financing.
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