Stakeholders want FG to boost agriculture

Participants at the Gombe State dialogue on the agriculture joint sector and biennial review reports on the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) have identified reasons for Nigeria’s low performance of the 2017/2019 agricultural year.

The factors included non-availability of data to effectively track performance and constraint of conducting a national agricultural statistical survey.

The resource persons further said inadequate budget provision, statistical capacity, and ICT infrastructure and weak linkages and engagement with national stakeholders on sector performance assessment were major determinants.

Aided by a local civil society organisation in Gombe, the participants also advised that Nigeria “must improve on data collection and management system,” as well as encourage all state Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to create knowledge management system platforms for information sharing, and adopt Joint Sector/Biennial Review platform in national agricultural planning engagement.

They said: “To upscale the Country Stat project to all States of the Federation for the purpose of strengthening institutional capacity, data system and policy planning in the task of attaining SDGs in Nigeria.”

The communiqué they unanimously presented after the one-day deliberation urged the state Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, Ministry of Finance, and Federal Ministry of Agriculture to “identify necessary data, map the data with the relevant MDAs, and build stakeholders’ capacity on understanding the definition of each indicator of the CAADP Process Commitments so as to facilitate collaboration, assistance, and funding for data generation and management.”

They called for the adoption of one statistical system through resuscitation and harmonisation of existing data generation instruments like the National/State Statistical Coordinating Committees, ECOWAS Agricultural Statistics and FAO Country STAT, which can be leveraged into the proposed National Agricultural Data Management Information System.

“There should be continuous review of government priorities for greater alignment to the CAADP Process Commitment and an institutionalised data collection process and the establishment of an analytical system to make the data useable for better policy decision making,” it added.

Meanwhile, the Director, Hope for the Lonely, Mr Mansa Musa, earlier lamented before newsmen that the nation’s increasing population is greater than its food production.

According to him, the population is 200 million and increases daily, “it’s expected that it doubles by 2046.