Nigeria food imports reducing — FG

The quantity of food imported into Nigeria has continued to
drop on a yearly basis, the Federal Government has said.

It said efforts by indigenous farmers were yielding meaningful
results as most foods consumed in the country were produced
locally.

The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, gave the
report on Tuesday and stressed that Nigeria was doing well in
its bid to ensure adequate food security.
She said, "Nigeria is trying and one way to measure that in
economics is to look at the amount of food imports over the
years.

"The statistics we have show that food import is going down
and this means that domestically, Nigeria is trying to cover up
most of the imported foods. This, therefore, points to the fact
that we are doing more in terms of food security."

Okonjo-Iweala spoke in Abuja through her special assistant,
Dr. Emmanuel Nwosu, at the 2013 World Food Day talk show
organised by Oxfam – an international confederation
operating in Nigeria.

The minister stated that it was important to educate school
children on the importance of food security so that when they
grow, they would work on what they learnt.

"This is because in Africa and most developing world, we have
malnutrition problems and one of the MDG goals is to fight
hunger and provide food for the population," she added.
Okonjo-Iweala, however, observed that the challenge in Africa
had a lot to do with its growing population, adding that this
often led to food security problems.
She said the programme was important as it would help to
inculcate the right ideas in youths to combat the problem of
food in security.
The minister said, "There is a lot of work because most people
in Nigeria are running away from agriculture. They think that
it is just for the old. But when agriculture is taken seriously,
we will achieve better results."
The Gender Officer, Oxfam in Nigeria, Ms. Boyowa Roberts,
said the organisation was using the opportunity to raise
awareness on agriculture.
She said, "The theme for this event is 'Grow, Think, Act'. We
are working with youths from three secondary schools here in
Abuja, who will become food heroes and will be able to
mentor other people on healthy feeding habit and a lot more."

De Edge Farms