Nigeria: Enhancing Food Security Through Public Private Partnership

The agriculture sector provides sufficient opportunity for Nigeria to diversify its economy, making it less susceptible to the volatility of oil prices.

In pursuing its new agro-centric policy, the present government has intervened through several measures. In recent times, the government has begun to deploy a Public-Private Partnership (PPPs) to develop the agriculture sector.

These attempts at the use of PPPs in the agriculture space are gaining ground as some projects have earnestly commenced, and some recently completed. This has already cascaded to the state levels as we have seen some states driving economic revolution in agriculture through private partnerships.

A recent example was the Kebbi State Government's partnership with GBfoods to build a N20 billion Tomato Processing Factory. It is the only fully backward integrated tomatoes processing plant in ECOWAS - and has the largest single tomatoes farm in Nigeria.

The world-class factory and adjoining farm, include drip irrigation and fertigation infrastructure, greenhouses, seed planting robots, incubation chambers, and an abundance of agricultural machinery. The farm will serve a dual purpose, it will produce industrial tomatoes in the dry season and soya beans in the raining season.

The Kebbi State government has expressed optimism that the collaboration will result in a win-win situation for the State, the private sector and all stakeholders in the agriculture sector in such a way that food sufficiency and safety will be guaranteed. The Governor has restated his commitment to working with the private sector to facilitate food security by harnessing public and private investment to create a strong, mixed sector economy that can provide jobs for all and create the base for expanding social services and environmental sustainability.

The Country Manager, GBfoods Nigeria, Mr. Vincent Egbe, stated that the company has been working hand in hand with federal and state governments to make Nigeria a shining example of food security and also become the food basket of Africa. For instance, the federal government encouraged and supported GBfoods to engage with the CBN, Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to ensure the successful completion of the Tomato Factory.

This article was originally published by This Day. Photo:Pixabay