Africa must cut reliance on food imports, says Nigerian billionaire business mogul
New business mogul, Aliko Dangote, has said Africa should cut its reliance on food imports to curb rising food prices, which is a growing concern across the continent.
Speaking in Lagos, Nigeria, Dangote said that Africa should “reduce the dependency on imported food. We are importing very less and what we import we should reduce in the next 12 to 18 months”.
The billionaire businessman revealed this to the Lagos Business Forum where he was the main speaker.
“I don’t think we export enough food to feed the 1.3 billion people here in Africa. Look at Africa the land of plenty. We are importing very little and what we import we should reduce in the next 12 to 18 months,” he said.
The 54-year-old billionaire said Nigeria had the potential to be one of the top 20 food exporting nations in Africa. He said the country already exports enough food to feed itself.
He said that the food basket for the country consisted of cereals, oilseeds and rice with which they were able to feed the people, adding that this was also the case with other countries in Africa.
Dangote said the market would be dynamic for exports but the current market should not be too big.
The tycoon said that African countries would have to develop their agriculture sectors and make their farmers produce more food and not less and they should focus on quality.
“Africa is not going to grow without agriculture and farmers. They must be able to produce more food and less rice and if they produce more meat and fish and maize and so on, they would be really happy,” he added.
The billionaire businessman disclosed that his aim was to make sure that Nigerian youths were able to attain good things in their lives and the Nigerian economy would do well.
“I am not for making my people poor. I am for making them successful to
