Technological application, youth empowerment, and enabling policy are required to drive food security in Nigeria, according to Muda Yusuf, chief executive officer, of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise.
Yusuf made the assertion at the 38th edition of the Omolayole Management Lecture (OML), held in Lagos recently.
The 2022 OML with themed ‘Sustainable development of the agricultural sector for national well-being,’ and focused on food insecurity in Nigeria, was organised by the AIESEC Alumni Nigeria (AAN); Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA); Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).
Other organisers include the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM); and the Nigeria Institute of Management (NIM).
Yusuf said Nigeria urgently needed to apply technology in agriculture and also attract more youths into the sector.
He said: “We need to attract a lot more youths into agriculture to harness the creativity and the energies of the useful population.
“We need to reform our land tenure system because there are challenges around access to land. This is affecting agricultural development,” he said.
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The former director-general of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), further stated that the issues around agricultural finance also needed to be looked into.
“Quite a number of investors in the sector have challenges with credit.
“We must acknowledge what the CBN is doing but there is still a whole gap in terms of financing for agriculture. “These are some of the issues that we are concerned about in agricultural transformation,” he added.
Observing that the sector has not been growing the way it should grow, he said: “We are having a whole lot of issues around food security and issues of support for agricultural, agro-allied industries, linkages, and so on.
“These are all the issues that we need to address in order to ensure the transformation of our cultural sector.”
Yusuf called on the government to encourage the adaptation of technology in agriculture to do a lot.
“They (government) should also support a lot more irrigation systems and put incentives in place to attract the younger generation into agriculture. That way, we can harness that creativity and innovation to transform agriculture.”
The OML is an annual series held in honour of Michael Omolayole, a consultant to the World Bank and the first African to sit as a member of the board of advisors of AIESEC International in Brussels, in recognition of his contributions and service towards the development of the indigenous managerial leadership in multinational companies across Nigeria and the exemplary roles he played in nation building through management and education.
