The national president, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr Kabiru Ibrahim, in this interview with Ruth Tene Natsa, among other issues, called for an increase in the budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector and more government funding. Excerpts..
What are your specific recommendations to government on how to resettle farmers affected by the insurgency in some part of the North?
My specific recommendation is to be able to put the farmers back in business, and in terms of stamping out insurgency, there must be a deliberate programme to help or compensate farmers in their losses. There must be a programme of reconstruction that must include both economic and physical measures.
What intervention has been made by the AFAN to tackle the security challenges of insurgency and the problem of Fulani
herdsmen?
We are just from a meeting of the grazing reserves and routes and I can confidently say that the government is anxious to put an end to cattle rustling and whatever is causing the fight between the sedentary and nomadic farmers. The AFAN is in the middle of it.
Do you have an idea of how much farmers and the country has lost to insurgency?
In naira it is difficult to say, but right now I can tell you that most farmers affected cannot even afford to feed themselves.
Speaking about the interests of farmers, how would you rate the success of the GES?
It think its rich; the only drawback is that under the GES, the government was able to register only 14 million farmers. Of course we are more than twice that in Nigeria. What has happened under the GES is a selective registration of farmers, probably on the political leaning of farmers. Normally what happens is that it is the directors of agriculture that register farmers in the state, and they do this without the collaboration of the AFAN who are supposed to provide the names, thus giving way to corruption. So there is the need to ask, who are the marketers that provide the fertilisers, is it on merit, are the seed companies chosen on competitive basis or selected because they belong to some interests groups? Believe me if it was free the AFAN would have embraced it. But if you look at the states and local governments, the GES is only affecting friends of the governors of the state.
President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) has indicated interest to continue with the GES. What would be your
recommendations?
There is nothing wrong with the GES.What we are saying is that the programme should be modified because as far as we are concerned agriculture has no borders. It does not consider gender or religion, we do not segregate and there is no politics to it. If the GES is done on that basis, its reach will be deeper and will therefore be a success. So for the GES to be a success the AFAN must be involved; they must be part of the implementation of the scheme.
Have farmers been able to access the mechanisation GES?
Well, it was launched last year and I do not know if it is under the GES. If it is, it is yet to really take shape for us to be able to access it. But what I would encourage government to do is to create parks with large tractors and in the places of need as it is not everywhere that they are needed. In the same vein, it is not everywhere that the combined harvester, irrigation equipment and other such equipment are needed. They should be located at specific areas of needs. They should be kept in parts and have a management that will have control of their uses.
There have been rumours about the leadership of the AFAN. Is there a faction?
As far as I know, there is no faction. The executives and I were elected in May 2014 in our traditional show ground along Keffi Road and before then there was no other election. We were given the mandate to take over leadership after due process following the review of the constitution. The election came afterwards. So there is no faction, people are agitating for nothing,the office of the president, or any other office, does not attract anything. We are doing something that will add value to farmers and agriculture in Nigeria and if anybody is claiming leadership, let him show his followers. We have chairmen in all the states of the federation and even at the local government level.
Does the AFAN have a record of all farmers?
We do in all the states and very soon will come up with identification for all our registered farmers as well make available to them copies of our constitution which will be translated into Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa. We are working tirelessly to ensure we speak in one voice.
Aside the implementation of the Maputo Declaration, what are your recommendations to PMB with regard to agriculture?
For the year 2016, the federal government, and indeed all the tiers of government, should allocate 20 per cent of the total annual budget for 2016/2017 to the sector because going by past records, with a budget of four trillion, 20 per cent of that will be about N1.6 trillion. With that we can do everything that needs to be done.
People could argue that the sector is already well funded?
Yes it is, but it is not funded by government. From the 2015 budget it hardly got 2 per cent, 2014 was 1.7 per cent.
Would you say the little that is given has been effectively utilised?
I am sure the transition committee of the present government has uncovered so many things wrong with budget implementation. 50 per cent of these budgets are almost hardly utilised in all cases, even less than that in some cases. So if 1.7 per cent was allocated in 2014, hardly will 50 per cent of that be implemented in agriculture. Even the privatisation of the value chain is not well coordinated. Government must identify what each state has competence for and make it the state’s priority as done in other
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