Chairman, Board of Directors of Sterling Bank Plc, Mr. Asue Ighodalo, has identified five core areas that should be articulated in the quest to transform the agricultural sector in Nigeria and on the African continent.
He identified the areas at the virtual Agriculture Summit Africa (ASA) organised by the bank under a theme, Fast Forward Agriculture: Exploiting the Next Revolution.
According to him, to be able to effectively transform the agricultural sector, feed the continent’s growing population, boost her economies, create massive employment for millions of its young and not so young people as well as absorb the shocks of the on-going pandemic, the involvement of key stakeholders across public and private sectors in developing the right policies to aid the growth of the agribusiness value chain must increase.
Ighodalo urged the governments in sub-Saharan African economies to optimise the agricultural sector to attract sizeable investments that will help to drive expansion and achieve global competitiveness as well as increase financing to key points of the value chain, particularly small holder farmers, to modernize their practices and increase outputs.