Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has disclosed that his vision is that soon, Africa, and by extension, Nigeria, will become food basket from which the world will source its foods.The minister said this while delivering a keynote address at the 2013 World Food Prize ceremony in Iowa, United States of America, on Friday.
He said: “During my studies here, I saw first-hand how the US transformed its agriculture, linking research and development, private sector and farmers, turning the nation into the largest producer and exporter of food and agricultural commodities. I dreamed that one day, Africa would become a breadbasket for the world. After all, 60 per cent of all the available uncultivated arable land in the world is in Africa.”
He added that Africa, like America, must utilise biotechnology, research, science and available resources to become feeders of the world by linking these to field practices and making them work.
Feeding the world with more nutritious food, while depending less on chemicals, he said, was important, saying though biotechnology, bio-fortified crops such as orange-flesh sweet potatoes, Pro-vitamin A cassava, drought tolerant maize and Bt cotton now hold great promise for feeding Africa, it must not miss out on the gene revolution.
“Others must not make decisions for us. We must make them ourselves. Africa should accelerate the pace of use of biotechnology and put in place appropriate bi-safety regulations.
“The American Midwest is the dynamic breadbasket that feeds not only the United States, but also provides a rich bounty for others around the globe. It holds a special importance to me, personally. Because much of what I do as Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria today is rooted in the world-class training I received near here, as a Ph.D student at Purdue University in the early 1980s,” Adesina added.
The minister said as he dreamed, providence brought him in touch with Dr Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize winner for agriculture, and the man who fed the world.
“He became my mentor. Several years ago, we were walking together to a conference in New York City. We were discussing the need for Africa to develop and nurture its own green revolution.
“I told him that Africa had the resources to do that – the land, water and the people to grow more food – but there was a lack of confidence to make it happen. He asked me if I was a fan of soccer. I said yes. He told me that in the game of soccer, scoring the first goal can give a team the confidence it needs to lead them to victory. ‘Just score the first goal for agriculture in Africa,’ he told me. ‘Great things will result from that’,” he said.
He pointed out that Africa must achieve success at the scale of millions of farmers, and for that to happen, “we must change the lenses with which we view agriculture. For decades, Africa has looked at agriculture through the wrong lenses, seeing agriculture as a development programme run by governments. We see challenges, we see poverty - and we devise solutions for managing poverty. Poverty cannot be the comparative advantage of Africa. We need to see the enormous opportunities and rapidly unlock the potential for creating wealth through agriculture.”
He said agriculture was Africa’s past and in agriculture - as a business - lied Africa’s greater future.
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