The Nigerian Agricultural policy has not been friendly to the South-South agro-ecological zone; rather, it has always been in support of cereals in which the axis has minimal ecological suitability.
This observation was made by a member of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) Edo State chapter, Mr Matthias Ogunsuyi, during the AgroNigeria Town Hall Meeting (ATHM) held at the Imaguero College hall, Benin-City.
The meeting which was organised by AgroNigeria – Nigeria’s Agricultural Mouthpiece – in collaboration with the Edo State Government witnessed a massive turn out of agricultural stakeholders from the South-South geo-political zone of the country.
Speaking during the question and answer session, Ogunsuyi noted that the zone has always been marginalised agriculturally; insisting that this is largely responsible for the Zone’s poor standing in agriculture.
His words: “We are told AgroNigeria has visited almost all the six geo-political zones of the federation; but we are yet to know the government policy in relation to the South-South. I think there are types of crop that are seriously peculiar to those areas that has been visited and so, in terms of our ecology, there must be some kind of agricultural system that must be our own within this zone. The question then is: How has that been captured in the Nigerian Agricultural policy?”
Ogunsuyi further stated that “the zone is more of tuber and tree crops oriented with a lot of water and riverine zones, where we now have fishes, fishery products, and livestock” insisting that the national agricultural policies support more of cereals which our ecological zone has minimal capacity to grow.”
The State Chairman, AFAN, Mr Emmanuel Odigie in his contribution noted that the zone is plagued by unavailability of land for agricultural practice, adding that where land is available, the cost of preparing is exorbitant.
He also identified lack of continuity in government agricultural policies as bane of agricultural development in Nigeria, noting that this accounted for the uncoordinated and stunted growth in the agriculture sector.
Odigie noted that the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) of the immediate past administration; the Fadama III programme, the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GESS), IFAD programme and RUFIN among others, are laudable programmes which should be sustained and stepped up.
Convener of the meeting, Editor-in-Chief/CEO of AgroNigeria; and Director-General, Nigeria Agricultural Awards; Barrister Richard-Mark Mbaram, stated that the meeting was meant to get feedback from farmers on how the government agricultural policies have affected them.
His words: “Edo State is abundantly blessed with natural resources, vast arable land and good climatic condition. Despite all this blessing, you will still be surprised that agriculture has low productivity rate. It is in this regard that the state government is collaborating with private organisation like AgroNigeria, to find a lasting solution to this low productivity in agriculture and this is the reason why we are here today.
“The state government believes there is the need to collaborate with private organisation and in so doing, we are bond to move the state forward as agriculture is the mainstay of any developed society and I believe we all agree to this fact, hence we are here in the quest to move agriculture forward,” Barr. Mbaram stated.
Also, speaking on behalf of the Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Edo State, Hon. Abdul Oroh, who was unavoidably absent, the Permanent Secretary, Mrs Itohan Obayagbona, thanked AgroNigeria and enjoined all present to listen attentively and ask relevant questions as the gathering was meant to find a lasting solution, not only to the South-South agricultural challenges, but to the Nigerian agricultural challenges as a whole. In this quest “the State government has earmarked 150,000 hectares of land for farming and registered over 300,000 farmers in the State,” she said.
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