PRIORITY AREAS TO DRIVE NIGERIA’S AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN 2024
their safety, the price of food crops would continue to skyrocket.
The National President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr. Kabir Ibrahim, said that the budgetary allocation to agricultural sector is not up to five per cent, pointing out that the budget allocated negated the state of emergency on food security that was declared. He said that it is laughable to give less than two per cent budgetary allocation for agriculture in a country striving to attain food security.
Ibrahim said: “I do not condemn it 100 per cent because I know that there are some cross cutting areas and Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs) that would have taken some parts of the budgets because they would be used for agriculture. If we put all of these together, it is possible that the budget may have done a lot more than 2.0 per cent,” he said.
He said that to attain food security as mentioned by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there is need for more action in the agricultural sector as the only way to acknowledge the efforts to attaining food security.
He added that the problem of Nigeria’s agriculture is not lack of policy because there are many lofty policies that have not been effectively implemented. He expressed hope that with the declaration of state of emergency for the attainment of food security, Nigeria would do a lot better in agriculture as against what was recorded in the previous year.
He advised the Tinubu’s administration to stem insecurity in food producing states across the country while calling on the need to prioritise effective distribution of farm inputs to boost crop production.
“If they judiciously implement the budget and they do a lot of monitoring and evaluation, I am confident that we would do better than last year and even the year before,” he said.
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, said that agriculture must be approached in a holistic manner, pointing out that all the three tiers of government have critical roles to play in agriculture. Yususf noted that the state and local governments have bigger roles to play as far as agriculture is concerned.
He said: “When we talk about what was allocated to the sector and what was allocated to the sector is very critical. It is not just about allocation, but what they are doing to facilitate agricultural development. When we talk about agriculture, we also leave out water resources whereas all the investments in water resources, river basins, damns and irrigation are to facilitate agriculture so we must merge them together.
“Agriculture cannot stand alone; we need investments in road networks, and agro processing industries so that what we are producing can be processed. We must have a holistic view about agriculture, but more importantly, the state and local governments have bigger role to play as far agriculture is concerned.”
He also called on the need for the need to develop and formulate effective policies, which include policies around importation of agro equipment, incentives for agro equipment and inputs, noting that these are ways to support and encourage farmers to do even more.
He also expressed worries over the level of insecurity in the country, advising that one of the biggest foci of the present administration should be on providing security for farmers.
Yususf warned that as long as the insecurity situation is still at large, the outlook for agriculture is bleak, stating the urgent need to tackle the spate of insecurity headlong.
He also pointed out the need to leverage the use of technology in the sector, saying that of all the sectors in the economy, agriculture sector is the least to embrace the use of technology in Nigeria.
“There is no way we can transform the agricultural sector without technology. We cannot boost productivity; we cannot even attract our young population into the sector without technology. We should not be looking at agriculture as just growing crops alone, but look at it as agribusiness,” Yusuf said.