Covid 19 : Farmers, NAERLS demand for more farming incentives.

The two major  farmers’ organizations ‘’ All Farmers’ Association of Nigeria(AFAN) and Federation of Commodity Associations of Nigeria (FACAN)’’ have lent their voices to the call made by the Executive Director (ED) National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS)Prof. M.K Othman that African countries, Nigeria in particular must be ready to give agriculture a sufficient support so as to be able to overcome the COVID 19 impacts on food security.


 This position was today taken at the just concluded zoom conference held at the instance of Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) and Faculty of Agriculture, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The program was moderated by Dr. Sulaiman Umar of IAR.

Speaking on the subject matter  ‘’ The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Distribution of Agricultural Inputs and Food Commodities’’ the ED, NAERLS, Prof. Othman posited in his paper presentation that sufficient incentives  must be given to small holder farmers to stem down the impact of corona virus disease on food security, saying that the comatose level of Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs) at the states level was a thing of great concern in terms of extension services to rural farmers.

 Othman said this ADPs’ extension shortfall has led NAERLS to get directly working with farmers’ group using both modern electronic communication devices across the federation together with the farmers’ helpline to receive phone calls for agricultural extension services enquiries on best practices that would give higher food productivity.

He said that the supply of foods have been hindered wherever they were coming since the economic lock down as the movement of stakeholders at all the value chains were greatly affected with farming activities.
Othman posited that Africa, and Nigeria in particular must declare agriculture as an emergency issue with all the necessary interventions to address the COVID 19 impacts on food productions, saying there is need for a special robust data generation that would facilitate rapid development for the sector to checkmate scarcity.

NAERLS boss also stressed that massive development of rural infrastructure must be embarked upon by the Government to enhance food productivity with aggressive capacity training to farmers cum N50 billion plan for immediate humanitarian development against covid 19 impacts.

Speaking on the subject matter, the National President, AFAN, Architect Ibrahim Kabir emphasised on the need to upscale food production through good seeds and other inputs supply, stressed that  the need for Government to at this particular time invest on private sector in order to make them more productive and proactive to tax payment is inevitable.

Kabir said that government must give incentives to the small scale farmers so as to be able to feed about 200 million people in this particular time, pointed that farmers must take the advantages of the COVID 19 to expand  production capacity to meet global markets  in Africa and other continents as the case used to be in the past.

He however advocated for the opening of borders at this particular time that would enhance  ease movement of agricultural produce adding that ‘’ we need one another’s help to get out of this economic quagmire’’
Responding to the issue of people selling Government subsidised NPK fertilizer at an outrageous price of N15,000 instead of N5,000.00 , he said such people should be reported saying that the Presidential fertilizer Initiative of the Federal Government has made provision for 1million metric tons of NPK fertilizer that would be sold at five thousand naira per bag to farmers.

Also, the National President, Federation of Commodity Associations of Nigeria (FACAN) Dr. Victor Iyama said the negative effects of COVID 19 was very obvious in so many ways across the food value chains, pointed the closure of the markets in the first two weeks of the economic lock down caused a lot of food damages as vehicles going to farms and the ones coming to the cities were arrested thereby making food stuff to get spoilt.

Dr. Iyamu however posited that Nigerians must annex the opportunity in agriculture to overcome the impact of COVID 19 coupled the sudden fall in price  of crude oil, thereby calling that sufficient support must be given to agricultural development through some of its agencies that needed to be well funded in order to be able to effectively carry out their functions for the benefit of farmers and other stakeholders.

While FACAN president wanted the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) and Bank of Agriculture (BOA) to be well funded and recapitalised for the benefits of farmers and exporters, he however advised the Nigerian Incentive Based for Agricultural lending (NIRSAL) to identify those that it actually needed to work with as regards its mandate saying the commodity associations are the people to work with in order to save time and money.