The new Nigeria Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP) also know as the “Green Alternative” is a strategy that focuses on solving the core issues at the heart of limited food production and delivery of quality standards. As productivity improves domestically and standards are raised for all Nigerian food production, export markets will also benefit impacting positively on Nigeria’s balance of payments. Given limited resources and the importance of delivering sustainable results, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (FMARD) in consultation with partners has identified an initial pool of crops and related activities that will be Nigeria’s path to tackling the aforementioned gaps.
FMARD will prioritize improving productivity into a number of domestically focused crops and activities. These are rice, wheat, maize, fish (aquaculture), dairy milk, soya beans, poultry, horticulture (fruits and vegetables), and sugar. Nigeria believes that the gap can be closed by partnering closely with private investors across farmer groups and companies to develop end to end value chain solutions. These chains will receive facilitated government support as they make deep commitments to engaging a new generation of farmers, improving supply of specialized fertilizers and protection chemicals, as well as wider scale use of high yielding seeds. In addition, Nigeria expects to work with investors to sharply improve the distribution system for fresh foods so as to reduce time to table, reduce post-harvest losses, and overall improve nutritional outcomes e.g. lowering of diabetic risk, stunting risk, etc.
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