Still reflecting on the performance of the Bola Tinubu administration at one, experts in the agriculture sector have expressed their divergent views on the administration. The stakeholders, in separate interviews with FarmingFarmersFarms, said that the President started on a good note by declaring a state of emergency on food security, but that the implementation is not encouraging. They pointed out that the President is doing his best, but that more needed to be done for him to be able to achieve his goal of ensuring food security in the nation.
The Chief Executive of Bama Farms, Prince Wale Oyekoya, said that President Tinubu’s one year in office and his performance in the agriculture sector have been mixed with negative and positive outcomes. He said positive in the sense that he rolled out good policies to reduce food shortages and bring down food inflation; he encouraged mechanised farming and he also pumped more money into security to curb killings and kidnappings, but that the implementation of all these policies had not been encouraging. “The farmers-herders clashes have not abated, as more farmers are leaving their farms and kidnappings of the farmers continue unchecked. Food prices continue to be on the rise.
“Climate change is another big challenge, especially in the Northern part (of Nigeria) with flooding. State governments have not helped matters, as they have not assisted their farmers and this has affected food production in their states”, Oyekoya said. According to the National President of the All Farmers’ Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Kabir Ibrahim, the administration of President Tinubu had been grappling with several challenges around the food system so much so that Mr. President had to declare a state of emergency on the attainment of food security. “I will say that the Tinubu’s administration is doing its best, but can do a lot more. Nigeria is a very big country and the challenges ranging from insecurity, flooding, and weak infrastructure; all these will need a lot more time than a mere one year to begin to see results”, he added.
The Chairman, Lagos Chambers of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Agriculture and Agro-Allied Group, Kola Aderibigbe informed that the beginning was very encouraging with the promises of food security with the declaration of a state of emergency on food security. He said that bad implementation of fuel subsidy removal and exchange rate free fall had impacted farmers’ efficiency negatively, as the cost of production had increased more than 400 per cent. “This has invariably increased the cost of foodstuffs in the open market above the roof level. Citizens are becoming poorer daily. Farm input and implements are not easy to come by because of the high exchange rate and high cost of producing the same by local manufacturers.
Aderibigbe further pointed out that the last one year had witnessed a geometric increase in the prices of food and related necessities for human development in Nigeria. He said that insecurity is still prevalent as farmers cannot go back to farm fully and that the herders are still grazing on the farmlands. On his expectations going forward, he said that the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) needs to play its pivotal role in agricultural funding by making single-digit interest rates available to farmers. He added that there is the need to leverage on technology, stating that technology and cheap access to the Internet will make agriculture gain more value to encourage the teeming youth to participate in the business growth.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, has said that the agriculture sector injected an estimated value of N309 billion into the Nigerian economy in the last one year. While briefing the media on the sectoral update of one year anniversary of President Bola Tinubu’s administration, he said that the money was injected into the country’s economy through the harvest of agricultural produce. He noted that the provision of rural infrastructure, such as the construction of 77.8km of asphalt roads; construction of 130.9 km of earthen roads; the provision of 102 motorised and solar-powered boreholes, and the installation of 6,504 solar street lights, generated nearly 60,000 jobs in various rural economies.
Itemising some of the major achievements of the present administration in the last one year, Kyari further said his ministry had launched dry season farming with the cultivation of 118,657 hectares of wheat in 15 states in acceleration of all-year-round farming in a bid to ensure food and nutrition security. The minister noted that at the end of dry season farming, one of the participating states, Jigawa, had produced 55,000 metric tonnes of wheat, saying that the Federal Government had also supported 107,429 wheat farmers with inputs such as fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides, resulting in an output of 474,628 metric tonnes.
