Lagos, Sept. 12, 2023 – The federal government has launched a five-year national strategic plan to boost potato production in Nigeria from 2023 to 2028.
According to Proshare, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, said the government aims to stimulate economic growth through various agricultural value chain activities.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, China is the world’s leading potato producer, with 94.3 metric tonnes. Egypt is the top producer in Africa, with about 6.9m metric tonnes, ahead of Nigeria, the 7th producer with 1.2m metric tonnes.
The essence of this strategy is to ensure sustainable food and nutrition security to catalyse the rapid transformation of the Nigerian potato sector into a commercially viable sub-sector of the Agricultural Value Chains as a primary export product.
While the strategic plan is expected to boost potato production, analysts are sceptical about how ‘SMART’ this plan is.
Timely, yet lack the specific tonnes the strategic plan hopes to achieve in the next five years.
If effectively carried out, the strategic plan should promote Nigeria from its position in Africa. This will require a targeted measure of production the country set to produce and compete with other Africa’s leading producers (see chart above).
