Jigawa leads in agricultural development, targets 200m import substitution – Gov Namadi
…Says State allocates $136m to agriculture, eyes 15% of wheat production
By Jeleel Olawale
Jigawa State has emerged as a trailblazer in Nigeria’s agricultural sector, with Governor Umar Namadi announcing plans to achieve $200 million in import substitution.
The governor stated this at the Nigeria NewsDirect Award as the best Governor in Agriculture, held in Lagos.
The Governor was represented by the Secretary to the State Government of Jigawa, Malam Bala Ibrahim
Speaking to newsmen during a side interview, the state commissioner for Information, Youth, Sports, and Culture, Dr. Sagir Musa Ahmad, emphasized the state government’s commitment to agricultural development as a cornerstone for economic growth and food security in the country.
The commissioner, who highlighted several key initiatives of the state governor aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity and improving the livelihoods of farmers across the state.
He said, the state governor presented the state budget and agriculture got $97 million budget.That is around $136 million investment plans for the agric sector, adding that the state is investing wheats productions targeting trades.
He noted that, this year, the state is targeting trades of 120 trades which would enable the state to produce about 15% of the Nigerian wheats demand. And in terms of the economic value of that investment, which will translate to about over $200 million import substitution for Nigeria.
Sagir reaffirmed that these initiatives align with the state’s strategic goal of becoming a leading hub for agriculture in Nigeria, encouraged private sector investments in agro-industries to create value chains and generate employment opportunities.
“The His Excellency made provisions to make sure these terms bring about 10,000 hectares into productions all year round. Technically, that’s targeting around 30,000 hectares into production and irrigations.
“We are piloting a group agricultural parks to provide infrastructure and critical support services for agro processing to take place, because we believed Nigeri should be go beyond primary productions, but goes into the secondary and tertiary production of finished products.
“We are developing digital solutions for agriculture, in input distributions, in agricultural extensions and services in marketing and commodity trading.
“And we also envision that in 2025 Jigawa will scale up its successes in areas of wheat production, rice productions, and other critical areas of the agricultural, we are taking a systemic approach, whereby its end to end solutions to the agric sector and the commitments of the state governor which can be seen by the amount of resources he is deploying for the agric sector in the 2025”, Sagir added.
He urged management of NewsDirect to continue to celebrate his excellence.
