Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has called on the government to provide cheap credit and ensure policy consistency to enable farmers increase food production in the country.

The former president’s call comes, as food inflation and nutrition security concerns grow in Africa’s most populous country.

Obasanjo made the call at the 9th Agrofood &Plastprintpack conference in Lagos, Tuesday, saying farmers in the country were yearning for consistency in policy and single-digit interest loans to drive growth in the sector and attain food security.

According to him, food and nutrition security start with availability, then affordability by ensuring that everyone who needs food can get it. He noted that food was one of the major imperatives in life, adding that “there cannot be food without agriculture and agribusiness.”

Obasanjo further stressed the importance of agriculture in changing the fortunes of the economy, with attendant exponential gains by way of earnings, employment, food security and other spin-offs.

He noted that agriculture must be made attractive to the country’s teeming youth population, saying this would address the rising unemployment, worsening insecurity and youth migration through the Mediterranean.