NGO tasks FG on increased budgetary allocations to agric

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.”