The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has disclosed that a robust livestock and fisheries sector can boost the agric sector’s contribution to the country’s GDP and help curb the record-high food inflation.
This follows the mass criticisms that greeted the creation of the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development and inability of President Bola Tinubu’s administration to adhere to Mr. Stephen Oronsaye’s Committee report on trimming the MDAs.
The chamber, therefore, requested changing the name of the new ministry to the Federal Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development, leaving the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to focus mainly on crop production amid the performance of livestock and fisheries sub-sectors being very weak, as reported in the first quarter of 2024.
The LCCI President, Mr. Gabriel Idahosa, who stated this in his address on the state of the economy in Lagos, yesterday, maintained that the chamber still stood on its position on trimming and merging of MDAs, but that of the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development was an essential and a significant shift in Nigeria’s agricultural policy landscape.
Idahosa stated that creating a dedicated Federal Ministry of Livestock Development could provide targeted policies and resources to address the specific needs of the livestock sector, potentially leading to increased productivity and efficiency.
He said: “The Federal Ministry of Livestock Development, essentially as we said, if you look at the Nigerian agricultural policy landscape, we have always done something for rice, for example, there has been a lot of support for rice.
