The African Development Bank (AfDB) will launch an 850 million dollars agriculture programme to transform the sector and reduce food imports in Africa, an official of the bank has said.
Dr Chiji Ojukwu, the Director of Agriculture in the bank, said this on the sideline of the International Conference on Wheat in Abuja on Tuesday.
The conference was organised by the Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops project of the AfDB.
Ojukwu said the project, to be called Technology for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), would ensure the generation, sustainable dissemination and adoption of agricultural technologies and innovations.
According to him, this new programme will cost about 850 million dollars of which wheat alone is 20.8 million dollars.
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“We are likely going to get the approval for the programme this year and after that, it will start,’’ Ojukwu said.
He listed some agricultural produce that would be boosted in the project to include cassava, rice, wheat and maize among others.
The director noted that the bank had also introduced a programme known as `Feed Africa’ to reduce the level of food imports across the African continent.
He said the project would be aimed at tackling issues associated with productivity increase, value addition and infrastructure deficit.
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Ojukwu said the project would also help to catalyse additional financing through innovative methods and ensure enabling environment by government.
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“The idea behind `Feed Africa’, is to reduce the level of imports.
“Africa imports over 35.4 billion dollars of food annually and if not checked, in the next ten years it will rise to 110 billion dollars annually.
“Our bank came up with this programme which is focusing on 18 commodity value chains like wheat, rice, cassava and a number of tree crops that Africa spends so much money importing.
The director said that it would also encourage and ensure the involvement of women and young people in agriculture.
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“All these programmes we are putting together are to ensure that agriculture in Africa is transformed.’’
The Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops (SARD-SC) project of the bank is geared toward enhancing economic growth, food security and nutrition contributing to poverty reduction in Africa.
Source: NAN
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