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Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture, Akinwunmi Adesina, has stated that the solution to the global food problem lies in Africa. The minister made this pronouncement during a meeting at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland. Adesina, in a chat with Channels TV, stressed the importance of food security globally and the availability of arable land on the African continent for food production. According to research findings, Africa has over 84 million hectares of arable land, which cannot be found in any other continent in the world. “The issue of global food security is very important. Nine billion people need to be fed by 2050 and there is no doubt in my mind that that requires that we significantly increase agricultural productivity. “But if you look at where the land really is, most of the land is not in the United States, it is not in South Asia or anywhere in the world. It is in Africa and a bulk of it is in Nigeria. The minister further said that Nigeria will play a pivotal role in this regard as a result of its agricultural sector initiatives. He also noted that agriculture is a potent tool to alleviate poverty in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. “Africa and in particular, Nigeria, is going to be part of the major solution to global food problem and that requires that we change our approach to Agriculture – Agriculture as a development activity and agriculture as a business. “And that is what has been happening throughout this world economic forum and it is resonating because it is only when you grow wealth that you can get lots of people out of poverty. “When you don’t do that, you just normalise everybody over poverty. “Poverty is not an industry you can’t trade in it and Nigeria and other African countries got to change that,” the minister said. Watch the video here: