Report shows Nigeria can eradicate poverty with agriculture

A new research by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has indicated that Nigeria meet the criteria needed for food security, employment generation and wealth multiplication through agriculture.

The findings say successfully eradicating poverty through agriculture depends on whether a country has enough agricultural land, how fertile it is, and the demographic pressures, which Nigeria meets.

Currently, Nigeria has a land area of about 91 million hectares and 82 million of this total land mass is said to be arable, that is, capable of being used for one form of agriculture orb the other.They came from a first-of-its kind analytical framework, which tracks the performance of 117 countries over 45 years, to understand which policies have succeeded or failed. 
 
“Inclusive agricultural transformation is the bedrock of development. It can lead to increased productivity, higher incomes, food security and women’s empowerment,” said Carin Smaller, Senior Policy Advisor, IISD.This global analysis explains how progress has been achieved in some countries in recent decades and what steps can be taken for countries to succeed – and the outlook is positive. 
 
“Only 10 countries are still categorized by subsistence agriculture, compared with 30 in 1970,” explains David Laborde, Senior Fellow, IFPRI. “Except for countries at war, no country is worse off than they were decades ago. Our report in a clear indication that agricultural transformation fosters economic empowerment for countries and their communities.”
 
The report advocates a combination of good policies and huge investments in agricultural infrastructure, saying, “None of the countries studied were able to transform without an appropriate mix of policies and public investment that complemented each other at a given juncture,”