The Forum for Agricultural Commodities Association has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for signing the National Agricultural Development Fund Bill into law saying the Act is the bedrock of funding the sector needs.
According to a statement by the Chairman of the forum, Alhaji Sadiq Daware, with the signing of the NADF bill, the president had shown commitment to the plight of Nigerian farmers.
Daware said with the NADF, farmers and indeed all commodity associations would have access to financial interventions without the bureaucracy being experienced with the banking system,
He said the intervention alone is a landmark achievement under the administration and a legacy which farmers won’t forget in a hurry.
President Mohammadu Buhari signed the bill seeking the establishment of National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF) into an Act and was officially gazetted on October 30, 2022, with Number 192 and volume 109 that was certified by the clerk of the two houses.
With the presidential approval, the NADF now has legal backing to commence operation.
According to him, “Part of the way the new NADF will be funded by law includes derivation from 0.5% of natural development resources fund and 5% of the duty levied on import rice, wheat, sugar, milk, poultry and fish.
“The Federal, State and Local Government of the federation are to give take off grant, special intervention fund as such money must be appropriated to meet the requirements of the Act establishing NADF by the National Assembly in the budget.
“The NADF governing board shall consist of the chairman, and representative from federal Ministries of finance, budget, planning, and Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Science and technology with others from Federal Inland Revenue Service, farmers representative and major stakeholders in the agricultural sector.”
On 27th of July 2022, the upper and lower houses of the National Assembly approved the setting up of the National Agricultural Development Fund as financial intervention institution to support strategic aspect of the sector’s development towards meeting up with the inadequate funding of agriculture sector.
