Jonathan, 2nd right, at the launch of YEAP

President Goodluck Jonathan said on Tuesday that the recent developments in the global oil market did not catch the Federal Government by surprise.

While speaking at the official launch of the Youth Employment in Agriculture Programme, YEAP, and the Fund for Agricultural Finance in Nigeria, FAFIN, held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Tuesday, the President said his administration had for over three years been preparing and implementing Agricultural Transformation Agenda, ATA as a cushion to likely jolt to the economy from the international oil market.

The N37 billion YEAP was created to raise a new category of young farmers and agribusiness leaders in Nigeria with the initial target of reaching up to 760,000 youths over five years, while FAFIN with a $100m capitalisation target was created to raise increase in financing to Nigeria’s small and medium enterprises in agriculture.

“The recent decline in the price of crude oil further underscores the necessity to rapidly diversify our economy away from dependency on crude oil.

“By producing our own food, we will save scarce foreign exchange, reduce dependence on food imports, while reviving our rural areas and creating wealth for our farmers

“The decline in the price of crude oil did not take us by surprise.

“For the past three years, we had been engaged on a carefully designed and implemented agricultural transformation agenda.

“Our massive food production efforts, which led to the production of 21 million metric tons of food in the past three years, has created a buffer and mitigated the impact of the devaluation on food prices,” the President said.