All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Chinese investors, and Brains and Hammers, a private investor in Nigeria, have entered into partnership to boost irrigation farming in Nigeria.
Information officer in Nigeria’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mrs Juliet Okeh, stated on Sunday that the partnership was aimed at deepening irrigation techniques and technology to enhance crop production in Nigeria.
”The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Muhammad Nanono, has expressed the ministry’s support for the partnership.
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“The minister disclosed this when he received a delegation from the Chinese investors as well as Brains and Hammers, through AFAN, who visited him in Abuja,” Okeh stated.
She quoted the minister as saying that there were ample investment opportunities in agriculture that needed more partnerships, new approaches and modern technology to explore all-seasons crop production.
According to the statement, Nanono said he was pleased that Brains and Hammers, an investor in real estate, was diversifying into farming, particularly in the development of the irrigation system.
“If you will be able to work on these dams, creating irrigation, definitely the entire farming system in Nigeria will transform,” he told the investors.
There is need for expansion of Nigeria’s irrigation system to boost the production of crops, such as maize and rice, during the dry season, to mitigate their importation into the country, the minister added.
Mr Wang Yun, an agricultural expert from the Chinese group, was quoted in the statement as saying that they were in Nigeria to partner with FMARD through AFAN, to bring the Chinese experience into the Nigerian agricultural sector to boost crop production, especially rice and maize.
At the end of the four-year collaboration, Nigeria would not only produce rice for consumption, but would also become a major exporter of the commodity in Africa, and that China might even be buying rice from the country, he added.
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