Umar Namadi, executive governor, Jigawa State, has called on investors to embrace the ‘numerous’ opportunities that exist in the agricultural landscape of his state.
He made this call on Thursday at BusinessDay Media’s the Africa Trade and Investment Summit organised by .
Agriculture is the major driver of Jigawa state economy, and also the primary source of livelihood for the population of Jigawa state, being an agrarian state. Its an agriculture-led economy.
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“In Jigawa State, we are blessed with land; arable land of over 400,000 hectares, and you can do both rainy and dry season farming on this land,” said Namadi.
In the GDP survey of 2022 which was conducted by the Jigawa state Bureau of Statistics with the collaboration of the National Bureau of Statistics, agriculture has the highest contribution to our GDP with about 46.7 percent, the governor said.
He added that there is available land for investment in the state.
Namadi said, “The govt of Jigawa state has over a decade, prioritised agriculture by initiating the Agriculture Transformation Agenda.
“We have an agriculture policy that is put in place and is now being reviewed with the support of FCDO.
“As a government, we try as much as possible to put in policies that will support the investors. For instance, we have programmes like the Jigawa State Government Support Extension Service, Investment Promotion Agency; a one-stop service provider to all prospective investors in Jigawa state.
“If you’re coming as an investor, you have an extension service that is supported by the government, that will help your farmers to ensure they have improved yield and growth.
“In addition to that also, we have what we call Jigawa state-facilitated Outgrowers Scheme. This scheme arranges you with the farmers (you give them the input and you make sure they produce to the standard and quality required). We have the same arrangement with the Nigerian Flour Mills since the last five years.
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“In addition to that also, we have the Land Acquisition and Resettlement Framework; a policy which shows that you have an undisputed land allocation. It means once you are given a land, it’ll be free from every encumbrances, but the government also prevents long holding of land without utilisation for which it was given.”
