By Victoria Onyisi
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, has expressed the Ministry’s readiness to partner with the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) and other stakeholders to revive the country’s cotton sub sector to boost production job creation ,export opportunities among others.
The Minister stated this during a meeting with the Executive Director, ICAC, Eric Trachtenberg, and other relevant stakeholders at the Ministry’s conference room, Abuja, recently.
Abubakar Kyari revealed that the cotton ecosystem would create over 1.4 million jobs annually, which is in line with the industrialization policy of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
He added that the focus would be to develop key components of the cotton value chain comprising farming, weaving, ginning, and linking of cotton, among others.
The Minister expressed optimism that with ICAC technical expertise, the Cotton sub sector would be revived for sustainable economic growth and national development.
He said: “The challenges in the sector which discouraged farmers from cotton production to other crops would be looked into and be addressed for optimum productivity in the cotton ecosystem.’’
In his remarks, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Dr. Aliyu Abdullahi, stated that the agricultural sector is the biggest employer of labour in the country and expressed the commitment of the Federal Government to revive the cotton and textile sub sector.
In his welcome address, the Executive Director, ICAC, Mr. Eric Trachtenberg, stated that the organization would support Nigeria’s cotton value chain, revamp it by offering expert advice aimed at improving productivity, boost the value chain and investment facilitation.
He outlined the possible areas of collaboration to include training of farmers, extension service workers, deployment of technologies and innovative solutions.