Bar. Nkiruka Nnaemego |
A
nongovernmental organization, The Fresh and Young Brains Development Initiative
(FYBIN) has urged the Federal Government to increase its funding to the
agricultural sector, especially for women and youth farmers to increase their
yields and attain food sufficiency. Founder of the organisation Bar. Nkiruka
Nnaemego, made the call during Yfarm National Colloquium on Attracting Public
Financing in Sustainable Agriculture for Youth and Women Small Scale Farmers
held in Abuja.
Nnaemego
said the Nigerian Government is bounded by the Maputo agreement and committed
to the 2014 Malabo Principles of ensuring increase in public funding to at
least 10 per cent of the national budget to the agricultural sector.
She
explained that the increased funding would enable the nation to effectively
implement its programmes to reduce hunger and increase productivity, with focus
on food sufficiency.
She said
that this commitment had not been achieved noting that it was affecting the
productivity of small scale farmers, who account for about 70 per cent of the country’s farming
population.
While
speaking on the event, she said: “This colloquium provides a unique platform
for stakeholders in agriculture to brainstorm on innovative models and
approaches for attracting public financing and government involvement in agriculture.
From the Malabo declaration, which African Heads of State agreed to commit 10
per cent of their countries’ budgets to agriculture, it is unfortunate that
Nigeria is still below three per cent. Agriculture is the way to go now since
the country is looking for other options aside oil. We need to increase finance
in agriculture. Although the Federal Government is trying, but it should try
harder.”
She further
explained that Yfarm project’s goal was to promote youth/women-led agribusiness
society by reducing poverty, thereby increasing active youth/women
participation in sustainable agriculture by 2020.
She noted
that the Yfarm Project had been at the forefront of policy advocacy, media
engagement, capacity building and mentoring of rural and vulnerable youth/women
in some parts of Africa. “We celebrate outstanding youths and women, provide
access to markets and business networking through our National and African
Youth Agric Festivals and Concerts.”
Project
Coordinator, Food and Agriculture, Actionaid Nigeria, Mr Azubike Nwokoye,
appealed to the Federal Government to create an enabling environment to attract
private investment and urged government at all levels to do their parts by
increasing public financing on agriculture across all areas with comparative
advantages.
Said he: “Government
needs to increase the amount put yearly in agriculture by up to 10 per cent.
Extension services needs to be funded to assist farmers on the best practices. The
issue of post-harvest losses needs to be addressed urgently. Farmers lost more
than 50 per cent of their farm produce because there are not storage facilities
or processes in the country”.
National
Treasurer of Small Women Farmers Organization In Nigeria (SWOFON) Mrs. Hannatu
Soni, said that a lot of farmers could not access inputs such as seeds and
fertiliser timely, adding that this was affecting their productivity. “Inputs
do not get to farmers early. How can government in their intervention programme
supply inputs to farmers in mid farming season? That is a failure in its own
already.”
Soni
appealed to the government to make available inputs by January not in April and
May when such inputs were not needed. Mr. Alphonsus Onwuemeka, the Programme
Officer, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said that agriculture was in
the concurrent list and urged the state governments to play their parts to
lessen the burden on the Federal Government.
He
acknowledged the Federal Government’s support to agriculture and urged women to
take advantage of the gender unit created by government at the Ministry of
Agriculture to handle women challenges.
Highlight of
the event was the launched of the Yfarm Project 111 on Youth and Women as
champions for nutrition sensitive agriculture.
Internally
Displaced Farmers Lament As Flood, Pest Cause Loss Of Crops, Farmland Worth
Millions. Over two hundred Internally Displaced farmers in Gulani, Gujba,
Damaturu, Machina, Nangere and Fune government areas of Yobe state have lost
millions of naira as they lost their crops to flood, drought and pest.
One of the
affected farmers in Damaturu, Alhaji Ismaila Ahmad, said he spent over N110,
000 on labour and other logistics to cultivate his farmland but was ravaged
entirely by army worms, popularly called Mai kwat.
He said the
pest, that caused serious anxiety among subsistent farmers in the area, wreaked
havoc on many farmlands where soya beans, sesame, groundnut and cowpea were
cultivated. “I collected fertilizer, herbicide, insecticide, sesame, sorghum
and beans seeds on loan but my effort went down the drain. I couldn’t get a
single bag from the investment”.
Another
farmer from Gulani Local Government area, Adamu Salisu, who cultivated 1.5
hectares, lamented that his entire farmland has been destroyed by flood and
that the flood affected many farms that were on the lowland region of Gulani
and Gujba local government areas.
“The
rainfall we witnessed this season was exceptional; many farmlands were
submerged by the flood which resulted in a great loss of farm produce. “All our
hopes have been dashed because we rely on the farms for our livelihood. I have
two wives and eight children. We all put in our best to cultivate the farm. Now
we lost everything” he said.
Muhammad
Bukar, another farmer from Machina, who cultivated 4.7 hectares of land but
lost it to drought, said he committed over N200,000 into the farm expecting a
bumper harvest but has lost everything and that he planted the crops several
weeks into the rainy season but the crops wilted before maturity due to
drought.
“It wasn’t
only my crops that got damaged, there were many others. I only complained
because of the loan I collected under the Anchor Borrower Scheme, in fact I
don’t know how to repay it. After three years off farm, I got opportunity to
start all over again but the hope was dashed by the drought. Now, I got nothing
from the months of hard labour on my farm,” he said.
The
chairman, North East Commodity Association (NECAS), Nuhu Baba Hassan, disclosed
that the IDP farmers who suffered from the multiple disasters were
beneficiaries of loan facility under the Central Bank of Nigeria Anchor
Borrower programme. “5003 real grassroots farmers benefited from the loan,
which had collectively covered a space of 11,333.5 hectares of land. This
initiative has actually provided livelihood to over one million people,
especially IDPs that returned to their communities.”
He noted
that most of the farmers that incurred the losses are IDPs that were off
farming for three years before they got the loan and cultivated their farm
again. “With the help of the loan, we covered a total of 11,333.5 hectares of
land, cultivated by the 5003 farmers. We expected the farmers to pay the loan
in two categories: that is 40%, 30% and 30% in the farming circle.”
Hassan said
that the association has reported the incident to Nigerian Agricultural
Insurance Scheme (NAISL) since they have been covered by insurance for the
company.
The chairman
revealed that the Association had started registering farmers for another
federal government dry season agricultural loan to cultivate rice, maize, onion
and for animals fattening adding,“So far, we have registered 15,000 farmers and
we are hoping that by December, 2018, the farm inputs would be made available
in 16 local government areas of Yobe State.”
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