Stakeholders seek increased investment, working policies for agric sector 

Stakeholders in the agricultural sector have called for increased investment and an enabling environment for the sector.

This call became necessary following a series of challenges witnessed in 2020, especially COVID-19 pandemic which resulted in global lockdown, insecurity and flood.

The stakeholders expressed dissatisfaction at what was proposed for the sector in this year’s budget, they said the allocation was too inadequate to address the challenges confronting agriculture.

The stakeholders who spoke during a phone conversation with Tribune Online said there was a need to address security challenges and issues of funding in order to create enabling environment for farmers and investors.

The President, National Association of Yam Farmers, Processors and Marketers, Professor Simon Irtwange, harped on the need for Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) document to enable farmers to thrive.

Also speaking, the Chairman, Wal-Wanne Group, Dr Abiso Kabir, called on the government to encourage processing in order to increase productivity and a good market for farmers.

He said Nigeria’s challenge has always been that its agric sector is not as competitive as it should be compared to other countries.

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For him, this will give farmers the incentive to produce more. “If the farmers know there is a market, they will invest more.”

To address that, the government needs to take a critical look at supporting infrastructures that will help agric to grow.

“Another area I want the government to focus on is input subsidy that would make inputs get directly to farmers. We are not talking about subsidy for the sake of it, but to subsidise the process of making sure that it gets directly to the real farmers,” he said.

Eshioromhe Gabriel, a farmer with the Nigeria Farmers’ Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS), said the sustained terrorist activities in the North have had a negative impact on agricultural activities and food production.

He said the overall effect is not an only food shortage, inflation but also an increase in the rate of unemployment in the country.

While explaining that poor budgetary performance and implementation affected 2020, Gabriel said the agric ministry alone had a total of over N17 billion unutilised funds till the end of the 2020 fiscal circle when farmers had no access to funds.

“Government and other intervention agencies must be ready to monitor every money released for this purpose. They must ensure that these provisions also get to the targeted farmers and not briefcase farmers,” he said.

Furthermore, he said: “Nigeria is said to consume over seven million metric tons of rice, while the present paddy production hovers below five million metric tons, this, of course, is grossly inadequate, because, after processing, the nations milled rice will be around 3-4 million metric tons.

He, however, called on the government to encourage research institutes to seek for better yield, provide funding to real farmers, help acquire modern farming equipment through soft and target funds.

Stakeholders seek increased investment, working policies for agric sector