World Bank boost for Nigerian agriculture

23 Jun 14
A $495.3m international development credit has been approved by the World Bank to support agricultural services in selected, large-scale public schemes in troubled northern Nigeria.

By Judith Ugwumadu | 23 June 2014

A $495.3m international development credit has been approved by the World Bank to support agricultural services in selected, large-scale public schemes in troubled northern Nigeria.

The bank’s Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria (TRIMING) credit will also support irrigation and farm services to boost food, jobs and incomes in the region.

‘Given Nigeria’s determination to diversify and integrate its national economy to benefit all Nigerians, this project will help to advance this ambition in three vital ways – by restoring agriculture productivity, creating job opportunities for a large number of unskilled young people, as well as creating conditions for growth and peace in northern Nigeria,’ said Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, World Bank country director for Nigeria.

The project will improve irrigation on 27,000 hectares of land, irrigate an additional 23,000 hectares and benefit more than 140,000 farmers while also mobilising private sector investment.

‘It marks a transformational effort to improve large-scale public irrigation for expanding food production and catalysing economic growth in rural areas necessary to end poverty and boost prosperity, as well as enhance resilience of agriculture production systems,’ stated the bank.

Jamal Saghir, World Bank acting vice president for Africa, added that the comprehensive approach of the TRIMING project would ‘increase farm productivity, build climate resilience, recue flooding risks and improve the lives and wellbeing of millions of Nigerian people’ in Africa’s largest economy.

Agriculture is a key sector of the Nigerian economy, accounting for 22% of gross domestic product in 2012.

 

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