The government of the Netherlands is set to inject a six million euro into Nigeria’s agricultural sector and help fund farmers, processors and small businesses in that industry. This was revealed by the Netherlands Ambassador to Nigeria, Harry van Dijk while speaking at the launch of the HortiNigeria project in the nation’s capital city Abuja.
According to the Ambassador, the investment by the Netherlands will go the vegetable value chain in Nigeria by making it more sustainable and boosting domestic production in Nigeria. The HortiNigeria project is an initiative of the International Fertilizer Development Centre aimed at facilitating the development of a sustainable and inclusive horticulture sector that contributes to food and nutrition security in Nigeria. The initial six million euros, he said, will go to 60,000 farmers in the northern Nigerian cities of Kano and Kaduna.
With these farmers mostly made up of women and young people, it is expected that the investment will put them in a position to earn sufficient income from their farming; unlike in the past when women espeically got very little support to boost their farming activities.
He however decried the fact that Nigeria has a deficit of 13 tonnes of tomatoes despite the country’s natural and human resources that has the potential to make up this number.
Nigeria’s minister of agriculture and rural development Dr Mohammad Abubakar explained the country’s inability to export tomatoes in commercial quantities as due to challenges of low yield resulting from seed type use.