By Felix Umande

The Federal Government has set up a technical committee to immediately accelerate livestock development and staple crop production nationwide.

The committee is to expedite action on strategic interventions in the agricultural sector, targeting wheat and other staple crops as well as livestock development.

Vice President Kashim Shettima constituted the committee on Tuesday during a high-level meeting on agricultural sector performance and strategic interventions at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Shettima charged members to cross-pollinate ideas and come up with a blueprint for implementing strategic interventions in the sector.

The meeting was sequel to a larger meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu last week, which had agricultural and other multi-sector stakeholders in attendance.

The committee comprises representatives of the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Food Security; Water Resources and Sanitation; Livestock Development; Finance Incorporated (MOFI); Special Adviser and Coordinator, Presidential Livestock Reform; Senior Special Assistant to the President on Agribusiness and Productivity Enhancement; Senior Special Assistant to the President on Food Security, and Senior Special Assistant to the President on Livestock Development.

Other members include Chief Executive Officers of the Bank of Industry; Bank of Agriculture; National Agricultural Land Development Authority; National Agricultural Seeds Council; National Agricultural Development Fund; National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization; National Sugar Council of Nigeria; Nigeria Commodities Exchange, and National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure.

The committee will be coordinated by the Technical Adviser to the Vice President on Agriculture and Head of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, Ms. Marion Moon.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, said in addition to setting up the technical committee, the meeting deliberated on addressing critical challenges confronting farmers and leveraging available resources to scale up wheat production and dry-season farming.

He said during the meeting with the President, the Vice President was asked to further identify existing challenges in the agricultural sector and address them.

“Mr. President had always encouraged all-year-round farming, and we’re looking at coordination between all sectors and also including sub-nationals, states and local governments,” Kyari said.

On the committee, he added: “It is a technical committee with members from the various MDAs to sit and coordinate on behalf of all, and come up with its resolutions in execution. The report of the technical committee will have to be subjected to another committee before presenting to His Excellency, the Vice President and then subsequently to Mr. President.”

By Seyi Balogun, Lagos

The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, has called for an alternative approach to food affordability, warning that policies aimed at reducing food prices through imports could undermine domestic agricultural production and threaten long-term food security.

Emir Sanusi who spoke at the Sustainable Table Series under the theme: “Leading the Sustainable Development Agenda: People, Planet and Development,” held at the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos on Thursday, stressed that governments should prioritise nutrition, education, infrastructure and productive investment to improve economic development.

He said that Nigeria’s decision to open its market to food imports, including rice from Thailand, was a disservice to local rice mills leading to banks grappling with bad loans from investments in the agricultural value chain. In his words:

“All the rice mills that people built were wiped out. All the loans that the banks gave people in the agriculture chain, became bad loans.”

He stated further that even though the policy helped lower food prices occasioned by the removal of the petrol subsidy, it undermined domestic production and threatened long-term food security.:

“There’s nothing wrong with making food cheap for the poor, but there are ways of making food cheap or subsidising the poor on food without opening up the market to this floodgate of imports.”

Consequently, he stressed, the government should support poor households without exposing local farmers and businesses to overwhelming competition from imports.

He added that Nigeria must develop its capacity to produce food rather than depend on imports, warning that short-term interventions could discourage investment in agriculture and weaken the country’s ability to achieve sustainable food security.

The Emir also questioned Nigeria’s infrastructure priorities, arguing that governments often concentrated on visible projects such as flyovers and underpasses while rural communities lacked basic bridges connecting them to markets, schools and healthcare facilities.

Sanusi said a greater proportion of public funds spent on urban infrastructure could be directed towards connecting rural communities to essential services and economic opportunities.

In his view, “roads should connect farmers to markets and workers to jobs, while investments in electricity and other infrastructure should be planned around the needs of businesses and communities.”

The Emir also raised concerns about Nigeria’s debt-servicing burden, claiming that the country spent about 100 per cent of its revenue on debt servicing.

He said fiscal reforms were necessary but emphasised that they should be accompanied by transparency, accountability and measures to protect vulnerable households.

He further argued that citizens would be more willing to accept difficult economic reforms when they could see that the burden was fairly shared and that public savings translated into better services and opportunities.

The former CBN governor said Africa’s development challenge was not merely the availability of resources, policies or capital, but the ability to convert them into productive capacity, capable institutions and broadly shared prosperity.

“The next decade must be judged by delivery, not by declarations,” he said.

The emir also raised the alarm over child malnutrition in Kano State, saying more than 50 per cent of children under five are malnourished, while about 40 per cent of women of childbearing age are anaemic.

He warned that malnutrition threatened Nigeria’s human capital development, stressing that the country could not build a productive workforce without addressing nutritional deficiencies among children from pregnancy through their early years.

He said, “In my state, Kano, over 50 per cent of under-fives are malnourished. About 40 per cent of women of childbearing age are anaemic. With malnutrition, the brain is not properly formed; that is not the human capital that you want for development.”

Sanusi expressed concern that interventions often focused on identifying malnourished children after the damage had occurred rather than preventing nutritional deficiencies during pregnancy and early childhood.

He asked, “But who is looking at malnutrition? Who is getting to them in the villages? Who’s getting to the women when they get pregnant to make sure they eat what they’re supposed to eat?

“What we’re doing today is, we count them after they become malnourished, and we have these horrible statistics year after year. There’s a lot of malnutrition; there’s no food in the villages.

“And again, you cannot produce youth who have been malnourished, who don’t have the brains and expect these youth to be major contributors to human capital.”

According to him, addressing malnutrition starts during pregnancy and continuing after childbirth to ensure that children receive adequate nutrition during their formative years. He stressed:

“So it begins from conception, the moment a woman is pregnant, we have to be there until the baby is born, and then the baby comes around, and then with proper nutrition, we build the base for the youth.”

The Emir linked the challenge to Nigeria’s broader development prospects, noting that a young population would only become an economic advantage if citizens were healthy, educated, skilled and productively employed.

He said foundational education must equip children with literacy, numeracy and the ability to think, reason and solve problems, adding that education should prepare young people to participate meaningfully in a changing economy.

“Then you have foundational learning, children needing to acquire literacy, numeracy, and the ability to think, reason, and solve problems,” Sanusi said.

The monarch also called for greater attention to technical education, saying it should be respected as a pathway to skilled employment and enterprise rather than treated as an inferior alternative to conventional academic education.

Speaking, Sanwo-Olu said his administration was pursuing a development agenda that placed people, environmental protection and economic prosperity at the centre of its policies.

The governor said Lagos had to balance its rapid growth with the need to protect the environment and improve residents’ quality of life.

He said the state’s N4.4tn 2026 budget of shared prosperity allocated N2.338tn to capital projects, while the Lagos Education Access Fund was being implemented with a target of reaching more than 200,000 children within three years.

According to him, the government’s development priorities also include equipping young people with skills for emerging industries and creating opportunities for women and small business owners to participate more fully in the economy.

Sanwo-Olu urged businesses, financial institutions, universities and civil society organisations to work with the government to advance sustainable development.

He noted that the global Sustainable Development Goals had a 2030 deadline, making implementation, accountability and measurable results increasingly urgent.

Event convener, Olaniyan, called for greater investment in energy infrastructure, technology, Artificial Intelligence, and human capital towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. In his words:

“There are a lot of opportunities that we need to mobilise capital into. The next stage is moving from knowledge to implementation.

“We need to mobilise more capital towards implementation of the SDGs. We also need to look at how to store food, reduce post-harvest losses and reduce food inflation.”

The event also featured interventions from experts across various fields, including Dapo Otunla, Ademola Ogunbanjo, Rolake Akinkugbe-Filani, Uche Uzoebo, and Sam Faleye, on the importance of access to capital and attaining sustainable development.

By Michael Lim

Conflict prevention between livestock farmers and host communities in Taraba State through the promotion of dialogue and Alternative Dispute Resolution by the Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project has been emphasised.

The initiative was highlighted at the opening of a five-day ADR training organised in Jalingo for livestock farmers, host communities, traditional and community leaders and other stakeholders in the livestock sector.

The training focused on peaceful, community-based approaches to resolving disputes before they escalate into violent conflicts, particularly disagreements over access to land and water, livestock movement and alleged destruction of crops.

Speaking during the training, the L-PRES State Project Coordinator, Hananiah Albert, said peace and stability were critical to the growth and sustainability of livestock production in the state.

Albert, who was represented by the project’s ICT and Communication Officer, Ezra Atimas, said livestock farming remained a major source of livelihood for many residents, stressing that disputes within the sector should be resolved through dialogue rather than confrontation.

He said ADR provided disputing parties with an opportunity to sit together, listen to one another and address their concerns with a view to reaching mutually acceptable solutions.

The coordinator also urged stakeholders to make greater use of existing community leadership structures, saying early intervention and effective communication could prevent minor disagreements from developing into serious conflicts.

Also speaking, a resource person and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Taraba State University, Dr Danjuma Yusuf, urged livestock farmers and members of host communities to make greater use of traditional and community leadership structures in resolving disputes.

Yusuf advised stakeholders to involve traditional rulers, religious leaders, women’s groups and livestock associations in conflict resolution, noting that their participation could promote dialogue, build trust and preserve relationships between farmers and host communities.

He stressed that ADR should not be limited to situations where conflicts had already erupted, but should also be used as a preventive mechanism for identifying and addressing grievances before they become violent.

The training is expected to strengthen the capacity of livestock farmers and host communities to peacefully manage disputes while promoting improved community relations, security and sustainable livestock development across Taraba State.