By Terfa Naswem
The Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki has supported many
bills, reforms and activities relating to agriculture and rural
development and is willing at all times to support any bill, reform or
activity that would promote agriculture and rural development and
calls on all Senators and Honourable members to do the same.
The Senate Committee Chairman on Agriculture and Rural Development,
Senator (Dr) Abdullahi Adamu in the public hearing held on Tuesday, 14
November 2017 at the Conference Room 022, Senate New Building in
respect of National Fertilizer Quality Control Bill 2017 (SB 338);
National Livestock Bill 2017 (SB 373) and Legal Framework for the
Inclusion of Cassava Policy Bill 2017 (SB 152); made it clear that the
bills will surely be passed to promote improved agriculture and rural
development in Nigeria and Saraki is highly in support of these bills.
Saraki has affinity for agriculture and rural development. This can be
seen in his leadership will he was the governor of Kwara State when he
introduced agricultural policy reforms to increase the commercial
viability of farming, and also the volume of markets. The New Nigerian
Farmers Initiative was designed to improve the technical capability of
farmers and to ensure farmers had a significant financial stake in new
investment in agricultural expertise in the Zimbabwean farming
industry, and worked with Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers' Union to
identify highly skilled farmers able to support Nigeria's farming
industry and to move to Kwara and develop the farming industry. A
commercial hub was also developed to build capacity support training
for indigenous farming community.
During the presentation of the 2018 budget which President Muhammadu
Buhari called "a budget of consolidation", he said, "agriculture
played a crucial role in Nigeria's exit from recession and I assure
investors in agriculture that the menace of smuggling would be handled
decisively".
Saraki, during the budget presentation said, "oil prices are gradually
inching up, but that is no reason for complacency in our
diversification drive....We must grow our economy away from oil as
well as the need to increase non-oil revenue generation and
collection."
He notes that these bills would also place Nigeria in the global
agricultural business and will increase the externally generated
revenue of Nigeria.
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