1 min
With the rising costs of food production, leading to increasing food inflation, the Nigerian farmers have had a rough year with some distortions along the food chain. The consequences are fully borne by the farmers and a small fraction is being felt on the prices of food. The costs of production affect the quantity of land that can be cultivated due to high costs of input, while the high cost of food reduces the purchasing power of consumers. Interestingly, the government rolled out subsidies to support the farmers (Note: We don't have any verifiable data of genuine farmers). This initiative was able to support only a few farmers and its impact was very little; either came late or were too small to drive down the costs of production.
Also, our disaster management is still far from being effective; our current approach tends to be more reactive rather than being proactive. Flooding was experienced in some states (Sokoto, Kebbi, Jigawa etc) leading to food losses ranging from partial to total losses of farmers' investment and livelihood. Sadly, no compensation whatsoever as the majority of them had neither insurance nor any social safety net that protects them against such risks. So, more farmers became more vulnerable than previous years. More sadly, no plan had been put in place to mitigate these types of risks in future seasons. Just a normal false hope “we will look into it” and "e go better".
Furthermore, the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP), which has 10 intervention pillars and 11 cross cutting interventions has been ineffectively implemented as it has been unable to drive or slow down the food inflation, we are still in a free fall situation, not knowing when we will hit the bottom rock. Although the policy is being managed under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development, the popularity of the policy has gone down even at the Ministry and there were instances of total deviations in some of the programmes implemented. With less than 3 years to complete its implementation, it looks like NATIP might be abandoned totally and the sector might continue on auto pilot; no plan, no guide, no goal and mere wishful thinking continues.
As we close the year, my only hope is that those who genuinely desire growth and development of the agricultural sector in Nigeria could push harder with the little strength they have to make the government and other stakeholders see the bigger picture of prioritising the sector in the coming year, with a clear pathway. Food is our fundamental right and not a choice, and having enough food should be the goal of any serious government. We just need to get our priorities right this time.
As we close this year's calendar, I wish you all a fruitful and "hopeful" new year for us and the agricultural sector.
Yours-in-Service
Babatunde
Furthermore, the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP), which has 10 intervention pillars and 11 cross cutting interventions has been ineffectively implemented as it has been unable to drive or slow down the food inflation, we are still in a free fall situation, not knowing when we will hit the bottom rock. Although the policy is being managed under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development, the popularity of the policy has gone down even at the Ministry and there were instances of total deviations in some of the programmes implemented. With less than 3 years to complete its implementation, it looks like NATIP might be abandoned totally and the sector might continue on auto pilot; no plan, no guide, no goal and mere wishful thinking continues.
As we close the year, my only hope is that those who genuinely desire growth and development of the agricultural sector in Nigeria could push harder with the little strength they have to make the government and other stakeholders see the bigger picture of prioritising the sector in the coming year, with a clear pathway. Food is our fundamental right and not a choice, and having enough food should be the goal of any serious government. We just need to get our priorities right this time.
As we close this year's calendar, I wish you all a fruitful and "hopeful" new year for us and the agricultural sector.
Yours-in-Service
Babatunde
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