Thursday, 26 March 2015

Africa’s future billionaires will be farmers, says Nigerian minister

Africa’s future billionaires and millionaires will make their money from agriculture, says Akinwumi Adesina, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.  Adesina was named Forbes African of the Year in December 2013 for his reforms to Nigeria’s farming sector, according to a BBC report.

In his acceptance speech, Adesina said at the time he wanted to help people become rich through farming.

“My goal is to make as many millionaires, maybe even billionaires, from agriculture as possible,” he said, according to BBC.

African Development Bank is financing $170 million for a Nigerian project that aims to transform agriculture. The project aims to create agricultural entrepreneurs and producers by providing about 120,000 jobs along the value chain of priority commodities.  An additional 20 million tons of key food crops including cassava, rice, and sorghum will be added to the domestic food supply each year, if all goes according to plan.

A significant part of the project is developing outreach models in agriculture with young entrepreneurs, aka youth agripreneurs. The plan is for agripreneurs to promote agriculture among other youth in their regions through peer education, training and demonstration of agricultural best practices, and business skills in value-chain development.  More» 

Source: www.afkinsider,com

No comments:

Post a Comment