The Somali Prime Minister, Hamze Abdi Barre on Monday opened the National Conference on Food and Agriculture Investment which was held in Mogadishu.
The conference saw the attendance of officials from the Somali Federal Gov’t, traders, experts, and other stakeholders who are involved in boosting food and agriculture production.
The obstacles when it comes too boosting food and agriculture production were displayed in the conference.
The current Somali Prime Minister, Hamze Abdi Barre has said that the gov’t is committed to boost domestic food production which is crucial to promote economic growth in the country.
He also pledged that the gov’t is committed to reach self-sufficiency in terms of food.
He urged the local traders to invest in the farming in the country in order to use domestic products and shun products that are imported from overseas.
The Somali Prime Minister who made the remarks at the conference said: “The world is not aware of the food shortage before the war in Ukraine. The Russian invasion to Ukraine three years ago disrupted the food security. Many countries are faced with lack food and economic downturn. Russia and Ukraine are the two largest wheat exporters in the world. They together produce 40 percent of wheat exported to the world before the war between Russia and Ukraine.”
He said: “Once wheat imports stopped. After the problem that occurred in that small country, it caused that certain countries in the world were faced with shortage of food. There is a fear that countries store food and stopped exports.”
The PM added that the Somali populace have large and fertile land that is appropriate for farming.
He urged to exploit and seize the opportunity by investing it.
He said: “The policy of Somali Federal Gov’t is to review the agriculture and focus on boosting the local production. The gov’t is ready to do whatever is needed in order to exert maximum effort in the agriculture sector.”
He said: “The biggest objective is that the traders, the gov’t and the farming community must put maximum effort in boosting food production.”
