VP Osinbajo unveils Nigeria-Brazil agriculture project
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday launched an agricultural initiative, tagged “The Green Imperative” at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
It was attended by the Braizilian Ambassador to Nigeria, Ricardo Guerra de Araujo, four state governors, ministers and other government officials.
Osinbajo said the project is a crucial part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic diversification efforts.
“As a policy issue, we were clear that without mechanization at the bottom of the agric pyramid in Nigeria we would not be able to make the quantum leap in agriculture production capacity and create high quality agric and agro allied jobs,” he said.
He said the programme was designed as “a combination of service centers where technical capacity and training will occur, to the local assembly of tractors and other agriculture machine and processing centers where agro processing will be done.”
Osinbajo said major dividend of the project would be the thousands of quality jobs that would be created for the youth.
“One of the reasons why more young people especially those who do not have rural, farming backgrounds do not warm up to agriculture is really the fact that farm equipments are archaic, hoes and cutlasses and of course this requires much physical labour.
“Consequently the average farmer is 60 years; this project changes all that,” he said.
The vice president said the project is private-sector driven, pointing out that both countries’ investors were committed to investing and working on the project.
