The African Development Bank (AfDB) is aiding Nigeria in enhancing food production by allocating $134 million. Akinwunmi Adesina, the bank’s president, announced this support on Saturday following his visit to the Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) at Bayero University, Kano.
Adesina shared with journalists that the bank’s assistance would focus on cultivating 300,000 hectares each of rice and maize, along with 150,000 hectares of cassava and 50,000 hectares of soybeans during the upcoming 2024 planting season.
“This March, the AfDB is supporting Nigeria in cultivating 118,000 hectares of heat-tolerant varieties of wheat and another 150,000 hectares of maize.
“We live in an era of climate change, and yet only three per cent of African agriculture is under irrigation. We have to ensure we help our farmers with timely and appropriate information.
“We have no alternative but to adapt to climate change; adopt better ways of using water, particularly in cultivating dry land crops that are more resilient and tolerant,’’ Mr Adesina said.
He added that AfDB would provide grants for the CDA and collaborate with it to become a centre for predicting weather patterns and gathering information to improve farmers’ plans.
“We will also support youths to develop their business ideas into reality with our $20,000 grant on Agri Pitch’ andAgri Hacking’,’’ he said.
Mr Adesina commended the vice-chancellor of Bayero University, Kano, Sagir Adamu-Abbas, and the CDA director, Jibrin Mohammed-Jibrin, for assisting farmers with access to technology in the face of climate change.
In his remarks, Mr Jibrin said the CDA had received several World Bank research grants and had enrolled about 1,153 Doctorate and Masters’ degree students and trained farmers in agro-ecological practices.
CDA is a World Bank-supported centre established to serve as a regional training hub for the West and Central Africa sub-regions.
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