Minister Advocates for Establishment of Agric Data Centre

Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, Minister of State of Agriculture and Food Security, has advocated the creation of National Agriculture Data Centre to attract investors to boost Food and Nutrition Security in Nigeria.

The Minister gave this hint during the meeting with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) delegation led by the Director, Office of Emergency & Resilience, Mr. Rein Paulsen in Abuja, recently.

Abdullahi explained that the data governing system would attract and encourage investors, adding that such data would help to define farm types and enable the Ministry know where farms exist.

He affirmed the need to actualize the National Agricultural Data in Nigeria in the next two years, noting that the present Administration was fully committed to making sure that Nigeria was food secured which was the reason for bringing food security to the front burner.

He stated that Nigeria has 70% of arable land and yet some numbers of people are not food secured, adding that it is worrisome.

According to him, the Ministry had already started taking action to create the enabling environment to make investors entry easier with the focus to ease their businesses, stressing that by the time investors come in, it would enhance self-sufficiency, create job opportunities, inclusiveness of youths and women amongst others.

Abdullahi lauded FAO for their long standing partnership with the Ministry in the area of technical capacity, wide network amongst others, noting that Countries had drawn from FAO’s global experiences.

In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr. Ernest Umakhihe restated FAO’s support in achieving the Ministry’s mandate and called on FAO to revisit the quarterly meetings usually held in the Ministry to bring the issues again to the front burner.

Earlier, the Director, Office of Emergency & Resilience, FAO, Headquarters, Rome, Mr. Rein Paulsen disclosed that their aim was to follow up on what FAO was doing in Nigeria, with a view to determining what they can do more, to support the FAO Nigeria office to address it in the right way, focusing on enhancing resilience around it, rather than systematic approach.

FAO of the United Nations is a specialized agency that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security.