Stakeholders seek increased investments in agricultural research, others

STAKEHOLDERS in the agricultural sector have said there is a need for accelerated political will to drive the implementation of agricultural-related policies through renewed investments in research and development that will promote food security and agricultural sustainability.

This formed part of the recommendations presented at a two-day conference of the Women Enterprise Alliance (WENA) in Abuja on rethinking paradigm shifts in agriculture and initiatives to enhance food security in Nigeria.

In a communiqué issued by WENA founder, Aisha Babangida and other stakeholders, appealed to the government to foster agricultural development and innovation through increased investments in agricultural research centres, and extension programmes to accelerate food security.

Some recommendations include contained in the Communiqué include the need to invest in green-house technologies to enhance learning on agricultural innovations, creation of a viable agriculture marketplace and e-commerce platform, exposing agricultural students to innovative agricultural practices such as smart farming, hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics and the need for the development of efficient water harvesting technology to ensure food security.

The stakeholders also requested the need to adjust the existing curriculum to include innovative agriculture, adoption of smart agricultural practices to improve resilience, increase productivity and mitigate climate change, creating a database of the various agricultural ecosystems and community-based seed and seedling production strategies be embraced to improve the seed supply system for economic growth.

“There is a need to bridge the gap between development finance institutions and smallholder farmers to improve access to finance for scalability, the adoption of innovation in agriculture should be a function of geography, scalability, and sustainability government and stakeholders should invest in locally fabricated materials to enhance the scalability and acceptability of innovative technology in agriculture”, the Communiqué read.