Nigeria has potential to feed Africa, says South Africa-based Arewa group

Nimram Longbap-Longs, President of Arewa in South Africa, has said Nigeria has the capacity in its agricultural sector to feed the citizenry and the rest of Africa, if the potential of the sector is fully harnessed.

Longs told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Pietermaritzburg, Kwazulu Natal Province of South Africa, at the weekend that Nigeria was and is blessed with good land and weather for all year farming.

He said some countries that lacked good weather and blessed with few land, were doing well in agriculture.

According to Longs, Nigeria can learn lessons from countries like South Africa, China, the United States of America and Britain on how they made it in agriculture.

“In South Africa, for example, five per cent of their farmers feed the entire country and we can do it in Nigeria. Government should show more commitment to agriculture. Our people should stop showing lackadaisical attitudes to agriculture. If we did well in that sector in the 1960s, we can still do it again,” he said.

He added that there was nothing wrong in sharing from the experiences of other countries that are doing well in agriculture to improve the sector in Nigeria.

“Where we are lacking, we should approach other countries to learn from them. Nigeria has great potentialities in agriculture and experts have continued to harp on this,” he said.

Longs stated that if agriculture becomes the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, the country will have enough funds to improve other sectors of its economy.

(NAN)