World Bank Approves $300m To Boost Farming In Nigeria

The World Bank, yesterday, said it has approved credit facilities of $300 million for Nigeria to boost farming output and food security.

A $200 million loan will go to small-holder farmers organised in clusters in six of the country’s 36 states for producers of rice, cassava, sorghum and other staples, the World Bank said.

Another $100 million will be used to improve crop yields, promote market access and better management.

Nigeria is the world’s second-largest importer of rice and sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest wheat and sugar buyer. President Goodluck Jonathan’s government plans to stop rice imports, now costing 1 billion naira a day ($6.2 million), by 2015.

Agriculture Minister, Akinwunmi Adesina had a couple of month ago, stated that the country was expecting $1 billion in support from the World Bank, with $500 in agriculture and $500 for expanding the country’s irrigation capacity.

Nigeria attracted agricultural investment worth more than $8 billion in the past 18 months, Adesina said on June 13. Still, only 40 per cent of its 21 million hectares (51.9 million acres) of arable land is cultivated.

Agriculture employs 70 percent of Nigeria’s population, Marie-Francoise Marie-Nelly, the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, said in the statement.

The credit will be provided under the International Development Association’s terms for helping poor countries, according to the statement. As of 2010, more than 60 per cent of the West African country’s population of more than 160 million people lived on less than $1 a day, up from 51.6 per cent in 2004, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.


-- Vanguard

The Federal Government has launched a World Bank supported $300 million Youth Employment and Social Support Operation, YESSO, as Osun State called on the Federal Government to collaborate with state governments in the area of reducing the army of unemployed youths in Nigeria.

Speaking at the launch Thursday in Abuja,  Governor of Osun State, Mr  Rauf Aregbesola, said  if the Federal Government was desirous of eliminating the social vices, such as armed robbery, kidnapping and social unrest, which accompanied youth employment in the country, they should support any state government’s programme aimed at fighting the unemployment menace.

He said if any state provided employment opportunity for one person the Federal Government could match this with provision of employment opportunity for additional one person in the state too, to make it two.

The governor stated that if this gesture was replicated in all the states where there were employment-drive initiatives, the army of unemployed youths in the country would gradually thin out and thus reduce all social vices to the barest minimum.

In the state of Osun, the governor said he had been making giant strides with the Osun State Youth Empowerment Programme, OYES, which he said was designed to engage the unemployed youths in the state.