Agriculture plays a critical role in the entire life of a given economy like ours. Before the discovery of crude oil, Agriculture has been the backbone of our economic system as a country.
In history, previous governments tried all they could to rejuvenate and resuscitate this critical economic sector but often times, such undertaken was done with a relatively divided attention while still focussing largely on crude oil exploration.
Under this current democratic dispensation, the incumbent government seems to have done marvellously well to reposition our agricultural sector which has since been adjudged as one of the most developed and active sector of our economy. Since 2011 up to date, this sector has witnessed massive and wow transformational changes that are too visible to be ignored.
Thus far, some of these lofty achievements were recorded within the Agricultural sector of our economy under the Jonathan led administration:
In 2012 14 new rice mills with capacity to process 240 metric tons of rice were set up by the private sector while in addition, a sum of 1.2 billion dollars was secured by the Federal Government to install 100 large scale rice processing mills to produce 2.1 million metric tons of rice annually.
The Nigeria Agricultural Bank is being restructured and recapitalized to provide loans to peasant farmers at single digit interest rates.
Export of dried cassava chips began in July 2012 and this represented the first time that Nigeria will achieve commercial scale export of dried chips, which will earn the country $136 million annually in foreign exchange.
The Jonathan administration is resuscitating the production of Cotton particularly in the Northeast and Northwest zones of Nigeria through the provision of improved cotton seedlings, which have been given free of charge to farmers.
The Jonathan administration cleansed the rot in the fertilizer distribution system. Under the previous system, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development procured and distributed fertilizers to farmers. The system undermined the private sector and only about 11 percent of the farmers received fertilizers. The rest were sold to friends and ‘political farmers’ whom exported them.