Written by Joke Falaju
THE Federal Government Monday constituted a 14-member Policy-Working Group to develop innovative policies and institution that would facilitate the actualization of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, during the inauguration of the Policy-Working Group in Abuja said the aim of constituting the committee was to institutionalize agricultural policies and make sure that there are legislations to protect the reforms embarked on by the current administration.
The committee made up of distinguished economist, policy experts, macroeconomist, Nigerian-American professors, were given two months to come up with the report and part of it was to document various policy instrument and also to come up with new generation of instrument to sustain Nigeria agricultural policy.
He said they are to conduct impact assessment on the rural household and economy, build the capacity of staffs of the ministry and do a general analysis of agricultural policy.
The Minister while noting that policy framework that would sustain agricultural growth must expand public financing for agricultural research, disclosed plans to overhaul the entire agricultural research system to make them demand-driven and relevant to the needs of the private sector.
He also advocated for policy that would move Nigerian farmers away from the use of hoe and cutlass to mechanization “To achieve Nigeria’s goal of being a global powerhouse in agriculture, we must move away from hoes and cutlasses. We must face the fact: hoes and cutlasses simply connote suffering.”
“We must address Nigeria’s ageing farmer crisis and take decisive policy steps to get the youth into agriculture. That is why we have set the deliberate policy to establish the Youth Employment in Agriculture Program with the goal of developing 750,000 new cadres of young commercial farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs over the next five years”
Adesina further stressed the need for institutional framework that would see to the scale up of the budgetary allocation to the sector as 10 percent recommendation by the Maputo Declaration, so as to meet growing need of the sector and sustain the gains that have been achieved.
Lamenting that access to farmers’ finance is still very low, he called for the urgent need to revamp the Bank of Agricultural and also expand the capacity of rural finance institutions, so as to provide access to affordable finance for farmers and agribusinesses at single digit interest rates,
Climate change according to him would pose a great threat to the gains made so far in the sector, he advocated the need to develop and put in place bold policies that would reduce the vulnerabilities of farmers to drought and floods, especially crop and livestock insurance schemes, through the provision of support to farmers to be able to pay for agricultural insurance, while the private sector insurance companies would be encouraged to develop appropriate insurance products for farmers at affordable premiums.
The Minister also stressed the need for fiscal and agricultural trade policies to protect the gains being made in the agriculture sector, so that the country do not become a dumping ground for cheap subsidized food and agricultural products from other countries.
Bemoaning that the country is still faced with the huge challenge with child malnutrition, especially in the North Eastern states, he advocated the need to broaden the agricultural transformation agenda to include nutrition, through the promotion of food fortification, bio-fortification, school feeding programs and provision of multi-nutrient powders to mothers.
“We must not lose sight of the need to avoid policy reversals. We must do all possible to ensure that the policies and institutional reforms are institutionalized and backed by legislations to secure the future of our farmers,” he stated.
We will work very closely with the leadership of the National Assembly, especially the Committees of Agriculture, to ensure that legislations are passed to protect the policies driving the Agricultural Transformation Agenda, assuring that the committee report would be presented to President Goodluck Jonathan and the Federal Executive Council for appropriate actions.
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