The high cost of the common man food, garri, and other farm produce has been blamed on the menace of Fulani herdsmen and unfriendly agricultural policies of govt in Delta State.
This was the submission of a civil society group, the Environmental and Rural Mediation Center (ENVIRUMEDIC) at a briefing in Warri on Tuesday to express disappointment at the state’s 0.45 per cent 2017 budget allocation for agriculture.
The watch group accused Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of deliberately rendering the state’s Ministry of Agriculture redundant with poor allocation while diverting needed funds to his political creation, the Chief Job Creation Office.
Founder of ENVIRUMEDIC, Lucky Enegide, said, “You stifle the agric ministry that has statutory executive responsibilities with mean budget.
You then allocate N1.3 billion to an extraneous Job Creation Office with no clear mention of beneficiaries and location of programmes and projects, and not accountable to the ministry.
We found out that the Job Creation Office’s selection process is partisan and targets political farmers, most of which sell their empowerment packages at the point of benefit.
If the smallholders women farmers who produce majority of the food consumed can’t access loan assistance, fertilizers and extension serves, why won’t the price of Garri continue to go up.”
While speaking on the menace of Fulani herdsmen, Frank Waive, another CSO voice at the Warri briefing, added that, “You also have herdsmen attacks discouraging the smallholder farmers from spending enough time in the farms for maximum output.
These farmers have been crying for help, but government gives no meaningful listening ears.
Security operatives are busy guarding politicians and oil wells why herdsmen continue to kill farmers.
So the mix of all these setbacks result in insufficiency food production. When the demand for Garri and other farm produce overshoots supply, the common reaction is astronomical rise in prices.”
ENVIRUMEDIC urged the Delta State government to exercise “deliberate increment in its agric allocations to meet the 10 per cent Maputo declaration.”
He also urged government to review existing policies and frameworks to allow true farmers benefit its assistance programmes as steps towards supporting food sufficiency in the state.
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