Let Agric implementations be galvanised at local, states govts, says ATASP Coordinator

For agricultural development to be impactful in the grassroots economic activities, the need for local and states’ governments involvement in the foods productivity has been emphasised by the National coordinator, Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program Phase 1 (ATASP-1), Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed Arabi who said the statutory revenue allocations from the Federal Government (FG) should be directly released to all the 774 local governments to achieve proactive implementation of foods value chain system for higher  productivity at the grassroots.

Dr. Arabi made this suggestion yesterday in his office at Abuja in view of the negative impact of climate change on the development of agriculture in Nigeria.

Arabi said that nothing meaningful would be achieved in view of the recent climate change impact on food productivity if revenue allocations for the local governments are not directly given to them to ensure execution of healthy environment for agriculture and many other projects towards galvanised economic activities in the rural areas.

He stressed that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) should leave the implementation of agricultural policies to the states and local government, while it concentrates more on policies implementation, saying that ‘‘ FG has no business in implementing agricultural policies, it should just concentrate on policies guidance and supervision or facilitation of international agriculture projects while the implementation should be driven by the states and local governments’’

ATASP-1  coordinator emphasised that until rural development is given priority through effective funding to ensure development of foods value chain system with proactive monitoring of forests against trees felling with appropriate permissions  and activities of trees replanting for adoptive friendly eco system of oxidation for  heat reduction cum constant clearing of drainages for free flow of waters during rainy seasons, saying  ‘‘ This is when our agriculture will be well developed as production from the grassroots are well monitored towards standard in the processing along the value chains and eradication of poverty’’

Dr. Arabi opined that the denial of adequate funding to local governments across the nation would result to non environmental management as we are presently experiencing the impact of climate change that needed to be repositioned with a better forestation management, efficient soil management, and proper drainages maintenance and provision of alternative source of energy for wood cooking and even pastures management for cattle to mitigate clashes, adding that the climate change impact of flood had washed away parts of the infrastructure of the ATASP-1 project in  some sites of the project across the country.