Economic team moves to fix agric sector

THE National Economic Management Team, NEMT, chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, moved to fix the perennial challenges in the agriculture sector with an approval of an Agricultural Transformation Action Plan, ATAP, that has the capacity to generate over 3.5 million jobs, leads to injection of N410 billion (about $2.58 billion) into the economy, and enrich farmers with over N300 billion (about $2 billion) in the next four years.
The key components of the new policy which is similar to the defunct Green Revolution are the development of areas of comparative advantage, value chain and cluster farming settlements in agricultural research and development, production, processing and marketing across the country.
The presidential team has however urged Nigerians not to expect “miracles overnight” as the government would not be able to tackle all the infrastructure challenges within a short time.
The NEMT has also approved the immediate removal of subsidy on fertilizer to farmers insisting that the impact of the wasteful gesture has not been felt by the targeted farmers, but noted that the removal would not lead to high cost of the commodity.