ibironkeeniola 
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele has charged African countries to place more attention on agriculture in order to curb hunger and malnutrition in the continent.
Emefiele said the region must unlock the huge potentials in the agriculture sector it hoped to become the food basket of the world.
The Governor said this while speaking at the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) Senior Policy Seminar in Abuja.
He said, “We must urgently develop policy measures around building what has been termed grey matter infrastructure in Africa in order to end the scourge of malnutrition.
“Nigeria and other African countries owe it as a responsibility to come up with policies and strategies to remove the indignity of hunger in the midst of plenty in Africa by stamping down hunger and addressing malnutrition, malnutrition is abnormal and affects millions of children in Africa.
“These children are either underweight or stunted, wasted or micronutrient deficient.”
The CBN governor further maintained that global food security depends on what Africa does with agriculture.
“We must move Africa to the center of the global food value chain by transforming her agriculture; failure to do this could mean failure to do anything else,” Emefiele said.
He added that constraints such as limited access to technology, markets, infrastructure, finance, etc. must be addressed.
On his part, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Muhammad Sabo Nanono said that malnutrition resulting from inadequate food consumption was a major challenge that Africa policymakers must address.
The minister said that most policies and initiatives have intended to only focus on agriculture production metrics while abandoning the equally important nutrition angle.
SOURCE: AGRONIGERIA