Stakeholders intensify effort on extension service bill to boost rural agriculture

As the need to grow more food arises amid low production and high cost of food, stakeholders in the agricultural sector have intensified efforts towards pushing for an agricultural extension service delivery revitalisation bill.

This bill is expected to identify areas that Nigeria can bridge food security in order to feed the growing population.

The Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) ICON2 Country Project Director, Hajya Salamatu Garba during a one-day multi-stakeholder meeting on the revised draft agricultural extension service delivery revitalisation bill, identified agriculture as the backbone of the economic growth of any country.

She said the Nigerian government approved the agricultural policy which gave an opportunity to WOFAN being funded by MasterCard Foundation to follow up to address the challenges of agricultural extension services.

“As you know, agriculture is the backbone of the economic growth of any country. In Nigeria, to be able to meet the food needs of this nation that is growing by the day, it is very important that we put agriculture at the centre.

“Luckily, the federal government approved the agricultural policy which has been on the table for quite some time, so it was an opportunity for WOFAN being funded by MasterCard foundation to follow it up because we are working with farmers and extension workers and one of the problems of agricultural activities in Nigeria is not having capable extension workers.

“So, they need to be supported and this, and this policy if translated into a bill and later to an Act, it is going to help us identify areas that we need to bridge food security in Nigeria,” Hajya Garba said.

Furthermore, she said the policy will promote the adoption of technology in extension services targeted at addressing the challenges of health, insecurity and other challenges.

“One of the things we are promoting in this agricultural policy programme is to bring ICT to the forefront, it means that we are going to have technology injected into agricultural extension activities, we should be able to have an App that can raise an alarm on the farm, even if it is health emergency or it is a security emergency and this App should be able to link up with security agencies or the hospital”, she added.

Professor Ikani Emmanuel, Executive Director, National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS) also identified extension services as the game changer in food production.

He said the Bill will address some of the challenges facing the extension services such as funding and coordination of the system.

“Extension services is a game changer if you want to move from traditional crude agriculture to modern agriculture. So, what we are doing now is a process that started in 2012 by having a policy in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, and the policy was approved recently by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

“But we are not satisfied, we want to move the policy from where it is now to the National Assembly to become a bill and made an Act of the parliament so that it can become a law in the nation.

“Up till now, extension practices used to be rowdy, it is not coordinated, and this policy will solve that problem. Funding extension services has been a problem, we want to see a situation where we will have a national committee that will be in charge of implementing this policy.

“So, if that is done and extension becomes what it is supposed to be, agriculture will change from being crude to modern agriculture and there will be food available for everybody and there will be security,” Professor Emmanuel noted.

The Board Chairman of the Technical Board of Advisers of the WOFAN ICON 2 project Professor Sani Miko noted that the policy accommodated private sector involvement in extension services.

While noting that the public sector cannot effectively run extension services, Professor Miko said for sustainability purposes, the private sector must have a key role in extension service delivery.

“The policy as it has covered the issue of private extension services delivery and even the bill is very clear about the participation of the private sector, there is no way we can run away from private sector involvement in extension service because in some states they don’t have the public extension, the number is small, there is no way we can rely 100 per cent on public extension services.

“If we are talking about sustainability, we need to encourage the private sector to be involved.

“So, we need to make sure that extension service delivery is pluralistic in its approach that means it covers every possibility of how to do an extension, private extension services have come to stay in Nigeria,” he added.