Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, Nigeria’s Minister for Agriculture has been named Forbes African Person of the Year. He was bestowed the award because of his remarkable reforms in Nigeria’s agriculture sector.
Akinwunmi beat Aliko Dangote, President of Dangote Group, Jim Ovia, Chairman of the Zenith Bank Group, Strive Masiyiwa, founder of Global Telecoms group and South African mining magnate, Patrice Motsepe.
Adesina’s initiatives in agriculture have empowered about six million farmers across Nigeria to embrace modern day agriculture.
The Minister can be described as the defender of African farmers, relentless in unlocking opportunities for farmers and changing Africa’s narrative on agriculture to wealth creation, away from poverty reduction.
“I am truly honoured and humbled by this prestigious award, which I dedicate to Africa’s farmers and the new cadre of young business entrepreneurs who have discovered the hidden gem for sustainable wealth creation on our continent – the 2013 Africa’s Person of the Year commented on his victory.
His Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES) ended four decades of corruption in the fertilizer sector, eliminating the middlemen and scaling up food production by nine million metric tonnes in the first year -almost half of the 2015 production target.
To enhance the process, he introduced Electronic Wallet System which allows small holder farmers to receive electronic vouchers for subsidized seeds and fertilizers directly on their mobile phones and enable them to pay for farm inputs from private sector agricultural input dealers.
The system has reached over 6 million farmers and enhanced food security for 30 million persons in rural farm households.
Electronic Wallet System initiative have been lauded in many quarters with several countries from Africa, Brazil, India and China now expressing interest in emulating the electronic wallet system.
In recognition of Nigeria’s reforms and progress, global and domestic investors have signed over $4 billion of executed letters of investments to boost Nigeria’s agriculture.
The World Bank, African Development Bank and other global development finance institutions have put up over USD 2 billion in support of his bold initiatives.
“My passion is using agricultural business and finance innovations to turn Nigerian and African farmers and agribusinesses into millionaires and billionaires. Nigeria must become a global powerhouse in agriculture,” he stated.
Dr Akinwumi Adesina is an Icon and a great example of a focused man on a mission to restore dignity and a place of pride to farmers and Agribusinesses in Nigeria and Africa. I am indeed happy that he is awarded ‘African man of the year 2013’.
Congrats HMA! Congrats Nigeria! Congrats Africa! Agribusiness in Nigeria is moving forward. With this award we the Agribusiness people are happy and expect
to see Dr Adesina do much more than he has ever done in the past for the sector. Let me also use this opportunity to thank all the people that voted for Dr Adesina, your votes made this award possible.