FAO commends Nigeria agricultural performance as farmers demand for accurate statistic

The United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has commended the performance of Nigerian agricultural sector for its ability towards cutting across all the value chains of production, processing and value addition with positive economic impact just as some farmers have queried the authenticity of the 21 million metric tons of food increase in less than two years in Nigeria.

In her speech read at the National Agric show ground during the closing day, the FAO country representative, Dr. Louise Setshewaelo said that “ Within FOA and the UN System. We feel very much encouraged that Nigeria is putting agriculture in the forefront to achieve broad based economic development in Nigeria. In January this year, Africa’s highest political leadership, declared 2014 year of Agriculture and Food security in Africa. This declaration as we all know is in recognition of the 10 years, since the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) was adopted by all AU membership, increase investment in agriculture. The advent of CAADP 10 years ago, brough in a paradigm shift that renewed hopes for the sector and rural communities. 10 years later, Africa must reflect, and take stock of the progress that has been achieved to date, the challenges and lesson that have been learnt, and most importantly, the way forward with renewed vigour”

Speaking on the MDG target Dr. Setshewaelo said in the statement that Nigeria is one the African countries that has attained the Millinium Development Goals target 1 of poverty reduction saying “ again in June, at the 2014 AU summit, the African leaders committed to ending hunger in Africa by 2025. To date only 11 African countries have reached the MDG Target 1 of reducing the proportion of hungry people by half ahead of 2015. Nigeria included”

While also commending the Nigerian farmers and other stakeholders in the sector, FAOR in Nigeria added “ FAO fully recognizes and support all efforts of the Nigerian farmers and all involved in supporting the sector. The Agricultural transformation Agenda together with CAADP National agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP), indeed are significant signposts for Nigeria, towards meeting her commitment to developing agriculture, to contribute effectively to reducing poverty, improving food security and accelerating rural development. We are confident that sustained efforts to improve agricultural productivity, coupled with effort to improve access to market will have significant impacts on progress towards the world food summit targets and improved quality of life for many rural households.

However the representative of the Action Aid, a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) and many other farmers had disagreed with the position of Nigeria attaining the MDG target 1 arguing the level of poverty in the rural and city centres may not give sufficient support to the measurement used for arriving at the achievement conclusion.