I hope that Tinubu’s agricultural plans are centred around developing farmers’ cooperatives and making agro-processing the centrepiece of his manufacturing policy

Ayo Akinfe

[1] All of Nigeria's 774 local government areas will be obliged by law to organise their farmers into cooperative units

[2] Farmers will be encouraged to sell their produce, buy seedlings, pesticides and fertilisers, as well as farming equipment through these co-operatives to maximise efficiency and overhead costs

[3] Every local government area must build at least one food storage facility within its domain. These facilities must be able to hold at least six months stock of food

[4] An agricultural tax will be paid to the local government to help provide and maintain the necessary services to support farming programmes. Farmers will pay this tax when they harvest their crops

[5] Agricultural cooperatives will be encouraged to move into value-added activities and will be provided with loans to facilitate this

[6] A National Bank of Agriculture will be established to offer loans to farming cooperatives at maximum rates of 5%

[7] Farmers will be encouraged to venture into organic agriculture because of the high premiums that this commands

[8] Cooperatives will be encouraged to buy their members high-yielding hybrid seedlings to enhance unit-per-head output

[9] Seed companies will be offered tax holidays to come and set up plants and facilities within Nigeria

[10] Processing companies and food manufacturers like Cadbury, Nestle, Mars, Kelloggs, Tate & Lyle, Unilever etc, will be encouraged to establish plants in Nigeria to facilitate vertical integrated production. Our ultimate goal is to export finished, packaged and shelf-ready products to international markets. Tax holidays, 100 year land leases, duty waivers, etc, will all deployed to full effect