Yemisi Izuora
Ex-Director General, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Dr Kandeh Yumkella, has said that Nigeria would be able to grow its agriculture sector if government takes seriously the green energy revolution which development partners are promoting at emerging economies.
Yumkella, also a former United Nations Under-Secretary General and the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sustainable Energy, said that energy is central to do proper agribusiness.
Speaking at the launch of N1 billion solar fund for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs, by the Bank of Industry, BoI in Lagos, he expressed worry that Nigeria had lost similar opportunity during Green Agriculture revolution which helped to boost agriculture in the Asian continent.
According to him, India and China with a population of about a billion people can feed themselves and also export food to Africa. This is because they took advantage of the Green Agriculture Revolution to develop appropriate technology. Burma and Indonesia also did the same, and all of these Nigeria missed.
Continuing, he said that he saw factories shut down in Aba, Abia state, Nnewi in Anambra state and also cottage industries and textile industries in Kaduna because they could not sustain cost of production due to electricity supply challenges.
He said, current study shows that alternative power source costs 30 percent of expenditure by the manufacturing sector, which has put the sector in great disadvantage.
Rumkella therefore charged the government to take opportunities provided by the Green Energy Revolution, to innovate and bring the agriculture sector back to productivity.
He said that Solar energy is cheaper to provide power to industries, pointing that agro processing industries cannot thrive without adequate electricity supply.