The Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams, has called on the six governors of South-West states to inject at least 15 per cent of their annual budget into agriculture.
Speaking with newsmen on Friday in Lagos against the backdrop of the recent food crisis in the zone, Adams said such allocation would make huge impact on sustainable food production in the region.
He urged the six state governments in the South-West zone to adopt the Rwanda model by engaging experise in their agricultural sectors.
“Investment in agriculture will provide employment, enhance IGR, provide food security, reduce urban congestion, and enlarge the coast for participatory, modernised agriculture,” he noted.
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According to Adams, the South-West consumes more than N8 billion worth of food and dairy products daily.
He said the recent food crisis was a clarion call to the South-West stakeholders, including security groups to provide the necessary security for farmers in order to produce enough agricultural produce.
“It is the responsibility of all the South-West governors to swiftly respond and seek a better approach to enhance both small and large scale farming across the region.
“They should also strengthen the security architecture of the region,” he said.
Similarly, the spokesman of Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, Mr Yinka Odumakin, said the South-West region can conveniently feed itself without dependence on any other region.
Odumakin added that there was urgent need to go back to the farm in the geo-political zone.
The Afenifere publicity scribe described the North’s blockade of foodstuffs to the South as a challenge to the South-West which had made its IGR from agriculture before independence.