Nigeria to get new agricultural policy
THE
Federal Government Monday constituted a 14-member Policy-Working Group to
develop innovative policies and institution that would facilitate the
actualization of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda.
The Minister of Agriculture and
Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, during the inauguration of the
Policy-Working Group in Abuja said the aim of constituting the committee was to
institutionalize agricultural policies and make sure that there are
legislations to protect the reforms embarked on by the current administration.
The committee made up of
distinguished economist, policy experts, macroeconomist, Nigerian-American
professors, were given two months to come up with the report and part of it was
to document various policy instrument and also to come up with new generation
of instrument to sustain Nigeria agricultural policy.
He said they are to conduct
impact assessment on the rural household and economy, build the capacity of
staffs of the ministry and do a general analysis of agricultural policy.
The Minister while noting that
policy framework that would sustain agricultural growth must expand public
financing for agricultural research, disclosed plans to overhaul the entire
agricultural research system to make them demand-driven and relevant to the
needs of the private sector.
He also advocated for policy that
would move Nigerian farmers away from the use of hoe and cutlass to
mechanization “To achieve Nigeria’s goal of being a global powerhouse in
agriculture, we must move away from hoes and cutlasses. We must face the fact:
hoes and cutlasses simply connote suffering.”
“We must address Nigeria’s ageing
farmer crisis and take decisive policy steps to get the youth into agriculture.
That is why we have set the deliberate policy to establish the Youth Employment
in Agriculture Program with the goal of developing 750,000 new cadres of young
commercial farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs over the next five years”
Adesina further stressed the need
for institutional framework that would see to the scale up of the budgetary
allocation to the sector as 10 percent recommendation by the Maputo Declaration,
so as to meet growing need of the sector and sustain the gains that have been
achieved.
Lamenting that access to farmers’
finance is still very low, he called for the urgent need to revamp the Bank of
Agricultural and also expand the capacity of rural finance institutions, so as
to provide access to affordable finance for farmers and agribusinesses at
single digit interest rates,
Climate change according to him
would pose a great threat to the gains made so far in the sector, he advocated
the need to develop and put in place bold policies that would reduce the
vulnerabilities of farmers to drought and floods, especially crop and livestock
insurance schemes, through the provision of support to farmers to be able to
pay for agricultural insurance, while the private sector insurance companies
would be encouraged to develop appropriate insurance products for farmers at
affordable premiums.
The Minister also stressed the
need for fiscal and agricultural trade policies to protect the gains being made
in the agriculture sector, so that the country do not become a dumping ground
for cheap subsidized food and agricultural products from other countries.
Bemoaning that the country is
still faced with the huge challenge with child malnutrition, especially in the
North Eastern states, he advocated the need to broaden the agricultural
transformation agenda to include nutrition, through the promotion of food
fortification, bio-fortification, school feeding programs and provision of
multi-nutrient powders to mothers.
“We must not lose sight of the
need to avoid policy reversals. We must do all possible to ensure that the
policies and institutional reforms are institutionalized and backed by
legislations to secure the future of our farmers,” he stated.
We will work very closely with
the leadership of the National Assembly, especially the Committees of
Agriculture, to ensure that legislations are passed to protect the policies
driving the Agricultural Transformation Agenda, assuring that the committee
report would be presented to President Goodluck Jonathan and the Federal
Executive Council for appropriate actions.
Source: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/news/national-news/179168-nigeria-to-get-new-agricultural-policy
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