From Gyang Bere, Jos
Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has expressed fear over food security in the country following the prediction of potentially explosive population in 2018.
He noted that the Federal Government should invest hugely in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) for the development of agro-allied Industries in Nigeria to address the pending challenges.
Emefiele disclosed this during a lecture tagged: Financing science, technology (STI) for the development of agro-allied industries in Nigeria, delivered to the participants of Senior Executive Course 39, at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), kuru-Plateau State.
Emefiele, who was represented by Deputy Governor Corporate Services, Alhaji Suleiman Barau, said Nigerians in diaspora have not done enough to help the nation on the path of economic diversification and development of agro-allied industries.
“The current level of production of the Agro-allied industries remains low. If Nigeria is to achieve its goal of food sufficiency and a diversified economy, more attention must be paid to implementing financing for agro-allied industries by the government and also through deliberate policies that would encourage non-government investors.
“Government should invest more in agriculture and agro-allied industries, towards achieving food security in view of the potentially explosive population of the country which is estimated at 195 million in 2018.”
The CBN boss said myriad of challenges such as lack of access to finance, cost of borrowing and absence of alternative known traditional sources of funding impede the financing of Science, Technology, Innovation (STI) and Agriculture.
He said large scale agricultural value chain projects funded with N200 billion Federal Government bond has financed 520 projects with the sum of N484. 2 billion and created 1.2 million jobs while 604 projects were financed with the sum of N382 billion and created over 30, 000 jobs.
Emefiele said budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Science and Technology for 2015, 2016 and 2017 as a per cent of total was a dismal 0.66%, 0.87% and 0.93% of total budgetary provision respectively. This is far too low to achieve the drive towards harnessing STI to develop agro-allied industries as well as the agricultural sector for sufficient food production in 2018.