Posted on February, 19, 2018 at 08:20 am
By Kingsley Opurum
A World Bank assessment report has ranked Nigeria among countries that have met the international standard in the area of regulatory frameworks for finance, fertilizers, machinery in agribusiness.
The Programme Manager of World Bank Group, Farbod Youssefi, disclosed the report during a one-day workshop for the Enabling Business of Agriculture (EBA, 2017) Report for Nigeria, organised by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in Abuja yesterday.
However, Youssefi noted the areas Nigeria has slacked off, like the area of seeds, markets, transport etc.
He said, "Well, it's not mine to say what the government should do or not to do but what I can do is to share the evidence of this report, which is basically the tool which compares the regulations in Nigeria; the laws and regulations for agribusiness with some other countries.
"When you do the comparison, you find that there are some areas where Nigeria has weaker laws and regulations than other countries. Those areas are seeds, markets, transport, to name a few.
"Now, there are other areas such as finance, fertilizers, machinery where the scores in Nigeria are actually higher than other countries. Still, there are some areas where improvement can be made.
"The evidence really highlights those opportunities to improve the regulatory framework for agribusiness here in Nigeria."
In the same vein, the Adamawa State Commissioner for Agriculture, Waziri Ahmadu, said that the country has good frameworks but lacks the political will to implement them.
"What happens in Nigeria really is not legal and regulatory issues that are the problem. In most cases, we have very good frameworks but when it comes to implementation, it's a completely different kettle of fish," he said.
He urged FG to increase the already available 30, 000 functional tractors to 300,000 to 400,000 tractors in the country because of the current population.
Source: Leadership - Abuja