Food Security
It is an indisputable fact that there is a symbiotic relationship between agriculture, national transformation and economic development in view of the role of agriculture in the provision of food, raw materials for industries and employment opportunities for Nigeria’s teeming population.
Before the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity in the 1950s, agriculture was the mainstay of the national economy which was to a very large extent a multi commodity export economy but with the advent of oil, lesser and lesser attention started being given to the agricultural sector.
Before oil, Nigeria depended on agriculture for her foreign exchange earnings but with the neglect of agricultural sector, the country started encountering social, economic and political woes.
As fate would have it, many Nigerians are positive that with the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari there would be a revolutionizing of the agricultural sector that would culminate in economic recovery, social, economic and political development of the nation-state that was recklessly and mercilessly looted by some greedy and unpatriotic people that have been distracting president Muhammadu Buhari from concentrating maximally on the arduous task of nation building and providing food through the revamping of the agricultural sector as food is one of the basic necessities of life that every responsive and responsible government must endeavor to provide for the masses. Be this as it may, every government whether civil of military or diarchy, no matter the regime type more often than not put premium on food security.
In view of the determination of President Muhammadu Buhari to diversify the economy, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) recently approved an agriculture promotion policy called “Green Alternative” (2016-2020).