The African Development Bank (AfDB) is to provide Nigeria with $134 million to enhance its food production. Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, the President of the bank, said the facility was being provided to support cultivation of essential crops like rice, maize, cassava, and soybeans. He said this after a visit to the Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) at Bayero University in Kano. Adesina said the bank would back Nigeria in the cultivation of 300,000 hectares of both rice and maize, alongside 150,000 hectares of cassava and 50,000 hectares of soybeans in the 2024 planting.
“This March, the AfDB is supporting Nigeria to cultivate 118,000 hectares of heat-tolerant varieties of wheat and another 150,000 hectares of maize. We live in an era of climate change and yet only three per cent of African agriculture is under irrigation. We have to make sure we help our farmers with information that is timely and appropriate. We have no alternative, but to adapt to climate change; adopt better ways of using water, particularly in the cultivation of dry land crops that are more resilient and tolerant,’’ Adesina said. He said that the AfDB would offer grants to the CDA and work in collaboration with it to develop a centre focused on weather pattern predictions and information collection to enable farmers to plant more effectively. We will work with the centre to become one of the centres of excellence in technology. We will also support youths to develop their business ideas into reality with our 20,000-dollar grant on Agri Pitch and Agri Hacking’,’’ he said.
