The African Development Bank (AfDB), has said it will invest $24 billion in agriculture over the next 10 years through its Feed Africa programme.
President of the Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, who disclosed this recently at the 50th anniversary celebration of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, said the goal of the bank is to “ensure that Africa feeds itself within 10 years, and unlocks the full potential of its agriculture.
“I am humbled and deeply appreciative of the opportunity to lend my name to this well-equipped building, which will be used by young Agripreneurs to learn, set up and launch their own businesses, and create a prosperous living for themselves, their families and those they will employ,” he said.
Adesina re-affirmed his conviction that the future millionaires and billionaires of Africa will emerge from the agriculture sector.
“Africa is today spending $35 billion a year importing food. That is $35 billion that should be kept in the continent. This is a $35 billion market that young people can tap into to create new wealth each year. To do that requires changing the lenses with which we look at agriculture. Agriculture should no longer be seen as a way of life or a development sector but as a business for wealth creation.”
However, IITA in recognition of Adesina’s immense contributions to improving agriculture named a newly constructed building after him. The $700,000 Akinwumi Adesina Youth Agripreneurs Building is a new training facility for capacity development for youth agripreneurs funded by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and IITA. The training facility comprises two major training rooms that can accommodate 50 trainees each, two big offices for 30 interns each, and 20 standard sized offices.