Mixed-reactions trail FG’s achievements in agric

The decision of this administration right from inception to diversify the Nigerian economy has agriculture as one of the major sectors President Muhammadu Buhari promised to leverage on. But stakeholders in the sector have reacted to the performance of this administration differently. JOHN OBA writes.

Nigeria’s agricultural sector is, according to experts, one of the richest sectors in Africa with huge potential that could lift the country out of it current economic recession, hence the promise by President Muhammadu Buhari to pay considerable attention to the sector, but despite this promises and assurances, activities in the sector has been all motion without movement.

Though Nigerians differed in their assessment of the government’s achievement in the sector as it marks its second anniversary but all agreed that there are more to be done.
A report by Oxford Business Group of 2016, revealed that the agricultural sector in Nigeria is performing solidly well. The report states that the sector grew at the rate of 3.48% in the fourth quarter of 2015 and a full year of 3.72% well above general economic growth of
2.11%. But many have queried the sincerity of this report amidst the current administration lackadaisical attitude, with many pointing to the fact that budgetary allocation for agricultural sector since the inception of this administration has been abysmally less than 2%. For instance, the 2016 budget is a far cry from the 2003 AU-Maputo Declaration’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which requires that African countries allocates at least 10 percent of their annual budgets to agriculture and achieve six percent annual growth in agricultural GDP.

Its only tell that Nigeria may not be able to meet it plan to make Nigeria self-sufficient in food production in the next 30 years if there are not considerable change to government financing in agriculture. And the lack of conducive environment for the private sector to freely invest in the sector is also not helping matters.
For many it is ridiculous that the federal and state governments will spend less than 2% of the total budget this year on agriculture. With the total expenditure of the federal and 30 state governments which stands at N254 billion which is 1.8 percent on agriculture despite that fact that this is slightly higher than the N196.3 billion 1.6% of 2016.

It could be recalled that immediately the president assume office, he railed out economic program aimed at making Nigeria one of the 20 largest world economies by the year 2020 with focus on power and energy, food security and agriculture, wealth creation and employment, mass transportation, land reforms security and functional education.
Looking at activities in the sector under this administration, a farmer, Mrs Anthonia Obiora, wonder about the sincerity of the government in agriculture with such low budgetary allocation.
She noted that almost half of these figures in the budget would be expended on running the bureaucracies of the agric ministries and their related agencies.

“Since inception of this government, all we have been hearing is that they want to diversify and focus on a non-oil sector, and agriculture is one of such sector but if they want to focus on agriculture yet the amount budgeted for agriculture is not up to 2% of the entire budget, that is the first sign of un-seriousness,” she said.
But to the secretary general, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), Mr. Baba Othman Ngalzarma, the administration has been doing a lot that was not done by the previous administration saying the livestock subsector had experienced a total neglect under the previous administrations.

“Nothing was done to the subsector to the extent that, today all the national grassing reserves are over taken by so many factor. Most of the reserves have infrastructures but today they have all dilapidated, the dams are sinking, the nomadic schools are not functioning, the boreholes are not working, the milk collection centres and veterinary clinics are not working and because of the laxity of the past administration, there were a lot of encroachment by farmers into the grassing reserves and most of the cattle routs have been blocked may be due to increase in population because of development of new house and road constructions have taken over most of the cattle routes.

“But the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, has begun to show some interest aimed at addressing these issues. I can testify that the ministry of agriculture has sponsored sensitization exercise throughout the federation, in the first phase, we visited 12 states where we sat the farmers and the pastoralists together to discussed and come out with solutions on how to address the peculiarity problems of each state.
“Then in the second phase, some ten more states were visited for peace and to bring back the lost communication this was replaced by mistrust frustration.

And the ministry has put so many programmes in place to address the issues of pasture production because we know that the ministry is now working round the country to establish some paddocks grasses that can be used by pastoralists as a model to be thought how to grow their own grasses in the grassing reserve. This is the first time in 20 years the livestock sector is receiving attention,” he said.

But for members of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), the agricultural sector is not faring well under this administration. To them all the noise about development in the sector are mere show because prices of food items are still at the roof top and government seem to be helpless.
Speaking on behalf of the association, Prince Ike Ubanka, said: “As far as the farmers are concern, the agricultural sector is not faring well because of the current insecurity problem. The bag of maize that we use to buy N5000 now goes for N20,000. Nigeria now import maize, and maize is not only use by families for food but it is also used for production in the food and feed industry. And this administration seem to be focusing on rice alone, and the rice is still costly. All subsectors of agriculture should be promoted. We cannot blame the government for insecurity, but this is affecting the green belt.

Calling on Nigerians to appreciate the current administration’s thrive in the sector, the chief executive officer, Thelma Farm Limited, Mr. Babatunde Oguntunji, said the choice of the current minister of agriculture is one of the best decision any administration would have taken, saying there has been a lot of documentation and work on policy reforms and creation to promote agriculture and increase capacity.
He said this administration has applied a more practical approach to keep it simple and making it more effective. Citing rice production as example of government’s effort, he said there was massive and effective drive to increase rice production locally.

“In production of agric produce exportation, the government is doing everything to make Nigeria competitive as other country. The first possible approach was to come up with the Zero Reject programme, which has taken a lot of effects.
“What this government has done for grass root farmers is to ensure that they get agricultural inputs. We have also seen the government’s efforts on fertilizer. On food security, the government need more effort to ensure that Nigeria is food secure.

But I am also aware that the minister is addressing this but we need a bit of push in order to see that more is achieve at the local level,” he said
Though he also agreed that it is necessary for policies to be implemented adequately, saying: “I do agree that there are lots of MoUs signed, alots of agreements, but we need to be able to step up in that regard but we must also support the minister and not criticize in our own little way. Nigerians should look at the good things that are on the pipeline.”
On policy, the country director, Synergos Development Innovation, Mr Adewale Ajadi, said agriculture has been neglected in Nigeria and that this has manifested in the GDP, therefore policies on agriculture must be all encompassing.

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