Female farmers seeks N15b annual investment in agric to boost IGR

The Small-scale Women Farmers Organisation of Nigeria (SWOFON) has stressed the need for state governments to invest at least N15 billion annually in agriculture to boost their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

The call follows an analysis conducted by ActionAid Nigeria, which reveals that a state’s IGR can be significantly boosted if it invests N15 billion annually in the agriculture sector.

According to the group, the budgetary allocation must be spent entirely and on time on irrigation, extension services, access to credit, women and youth in agriculture, labour-saving technologies, inputs, post-harvest loss reduction supports (processing facilities, storage facilities, training, market access), climate-resilient sustainable agriculture (CRSA)/agroecology, research and development, monitoring and evaluation, and coordination.

The findings revealed that if states invest at least N15 billion in the sector, Katsina can generate an additional IGR of N136.91 billion, Akwa Ibom N89.62 billion, Oyo N67.79 billion, Benue N64.39 billion, Bauchi N30.06 billion, and Ebonyi N94.60 billion, respectively. This investment would also result in a reduction in unemployment in the states.

SWOFON President Fatima Bello Gunmi disclosed this in a communiqué presented during a Smallholder Women Farmers and Stakeholders Interactive Forum on Inclusive Systems in Nigeria, supported by the German Cooperation International (GIZ) and ActionAid Nigeria, yesterday in Abuja.

The communiqué, issued at the end of a 3-day training on policy influencing and innovation for SWOFON members across the 36 states and the FCT, emphasized the need to treat budgetary allocations in the sector as an investment rather than as an expenditure.

Lamenting the impact of post-harvest losses on food production in the country, the group said Nigeria loses approximately N3.5 trillion annually, which is about N94.5 billion for the 36 states and the FCT.

They pointed out that the annual loss due to post-harvest issues is far beyond the annual budgetary allocation by each state to the agricultural sector.

They said, “This also means that about 50% of production is lost to post-harvest losses in Nigeria, resulting in a 50% income loss for smallholder farming families despite other challenges faced by farmers in the country.”

SWOFON warned that if nothing is done urgently, Nigeria cannot achieve food and nutrition security, lamenting that only 26% of farmers have access to processing facilities, only 18% have storage facilities, only 10% have access to transportation, only 21% have market access, and only 39% have training to reduce post-harvest losses.

The communiqué called on the federal and state executives, national and state Houses of Assembly to scale up public investment in agriculture, ensure timely passage and release of the budget, and ensure its strategic utilization as an approach to increase food production, reduce hunger and poverty, and achieve the National Agricultural Transformation and Innovation Policy (NATIP) objectives and the Maputo/Malabo commitments.

They stressed the need for parliamentarians to ensure that their proposed zonal intervention (constituency) projects are agricultural and evidence-based to create meaningful impacts in the communities.

The women farmers further called on the National Agricultural Development Fund (NAFD) to focus on creating a special credit scheme (instruments and services) for smallholder farmers, especially women, youths, and people living with disabilities in cooperatives. They noted that the credit scheme should be simple, easy to access, and offer one-digit interest rates.

They also called on the Fund to support small modular cottage processing and storage facilities in communities based on different commodities to be owned, operated, sustained, and expanded by women farmers. They added that the Fund should also provide labor-saving technologies for them.