By Muhammad Amaan
The Federal Government of Nigeria has announced fresh reforms to boost agricultural investment aimed at lifting 35 million Nigerians out of poverty and creating 21 million jobs in rural and agrarian communities.
Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima announced this on Wednesday during the opening ceremony of a three-day hand- in -hand investment forum organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Abuja.
He said the new reforms would introduce single-window platforms for land registration; strengthen agricultural credit systems; and expand irrigation infrastructure that would unlock Nigeria’s food production potentials.
Shettima noted that the government was re-engineering its policies to attract investments through regulatory reforms, public-private partnerships, and agri-tech innovations.
“Nigeria is open for business, and we are ready to partner with you, let us work hand-in-hand to build a Nigeria where no one goes to bed hungry.
“Where rural communities are hubs of wealth creation; and where agriculture is the true foundation of our prosperity.
“This blueprint seeks to lift 35 million Nigerians out of poverty, create 21 million full-time jobs in rural and agrarian communities, and secure national food and nutrition sufficiency through deliberate and strategic investments in agriculture,” he said.
He said that nothing unified humanity as much as hunger, adding that it was the great equaliser that reveals the vulnerabilities and the shared fragility of “our existence”.
The vice president said that food was not merely a matter of survival, but a matter of global security, insisting that Nigeria must facilitate access to land and resources for serious investors.
Kashim Shettima said that the government’s agricultural policy was targeted at creating millions of jobs and ensuring food sufficiency.
He said: “While securing national food and nutrition sufficiency, the vehicle to this future is the quality of policies we have chosen to prioritise.
“At the top of these interventions stands our National Development Plan (2021–2025), which has set forth ambitious but achievable targets.
“This blueprint seeks to lift 35 million Nigerians out of poverty, create 21 million full-time jobs in rural and agrarian communities, and secure national food and nutrition sufficiency.”
He described hunger as a global security issue that required urgent collective action.
