Small-Scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON), has called for gender friendly machinery and equipment such as hand sprayers, power tillers, ploughs, planters etc., especially low cost and locally fabricated equipment which can be easily maintained by local artisans.
The National President of SWOFON, Mary Afan made the call at a zoom media briefing on the Executive Proposal to cut the Agricultural vote in the 2020 Federal Budget Amendment in collaboration with Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).
She also called for the Extension services including meteorological information through various platforms including print and electronic media especially radio and television as well as digital media and training of trainers.
She explained that at 1.73% of the budget against the Maputo Declarations’10%; any further reduction will lead to decreased food productivity.
She further called on the National Assembly to increase the allocation to agriculture to at least 5% of the overall budget which is 50% of the Maputo commitment.
This will amount to a vote of not less than N201.1billion. Where this is not possible, then the original proposals in the 2020 budget for Agriculture should be protected/maintained.
She said food importation is not an option at a time of diminishing external reserves and government revenue. Sustainable funding of agriculture would lead to increased food production, jobs and poverty reduction.
She said budget funded programmes and projects for women and youth must have locations, clear deliverables, must not be vague and should be tied to identifiable stakeholders.
She said there should be steps to organize smallholder women farmers into groups of registered business names and companies to give them formal visibility to participate in formal business activities as well as benefitting from government programmes such as access to cheap credit.
She recalled the proposal by the Executive Arm to amend the 2020 Federal Budget and the cut in the vote of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
According to her , the proposal seeks to reduce the recurrent vote of the Ministry by N721million, from N58.686billion to N57.964billion while the capital vote will be reduced from N124.395billion to N79.012billion,being a reduction of N45.382 billion representing 36% reduction.