Post by Trade Coach on Jul 12, 2018 21:59:41 GMT 1
2011, National Programme for Food Security came up with the registration of all farmers including the peasant ones in remote areas of the country. FADARE ADEKANMI writes on this all-important exercise.
Mallam Idris Mohammed is a rice farmer from one of the states in Northern Nigeria. He is well known for producing on a yearly basis one of the best locally-made rice by the people in his community.
The current government efforts are in ensuring that the country not only produces enough rice for local consumption, but has excess for exportation.
But all efforts made by the government, through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to assist farmers like Mohammed proved abortive as his own popularity only falls within the four walls of his tiny village.
Mohammed is not the only farmer suffering from this 'non-assistance from government'; other hard working farmers from all over the country still getting little or no assistance at all from the relevant authorities.
Major Hitch
One major reason why this is so is because even the authorities that are supposed to assist these farmers don't even know how to get across to them, hence the nefarious activities of the so-called middlemen.
These men or women as the case may be, would approach the relevant places, pretended to be fighting for the farmers, get the necessary incentives, and at the end of the business day, sell them at a high rate for the same farmers they claim to be representing their interest.
Nigeria as an agrarian country, has over the years been unable to put in place adequate and up to date information of its farmers across the country, a situation that has brought little result to enormous government efforts to revitalise the sector as resources deployed to farmers hardly reach them.
With more government attention swinging to the agricultural sector and focusing on the development of agricultural commodity value chains, the need for information on the number of farmers, their location and the various farming activities they are involved in has become an obvious factor in the implementation of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of the current administration.
At the heart of it all is the challenge of paucity of data in terms of farmer population, cropping area and production output.
Farmers Database
The National Farmers' Database exercise by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is expected to fill the gap and make agricultural financing and inputs support more efficient by ensuring that the target group, which are the farmers, get adequate inputs and other supports meant for them to promote food production and ensure food security.
An effective farmers database would enable government implements its growth enhancement support, provides multiple and efficient services of the agricultural commodity value chains, facilitate a good monitoring and evaluation processes for any resources deployed to the sector as well as ensure a more real time advisory services to rural farmers.
According to Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the government thought it wise to know its farmers and establish an efficient link with them because gone are the days when only few benefited from government assistance to farmers.
The ministry said the data collected, is being used by agricultural stakeholders in both the private and public sectors in budgeting, community planning and policy formulation.
A comprehensive, credible and reliable data of farmers' basic information such as gender, size of farmland, types of agricultural activities, income and access to inputs and markets among others is critical to the success of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda and to the realisation of government's vision as well as to quality and nutritious food availability.
"This survey is expected to provide an opportunity for the collation of verifiable and well harmonised data of farmers to whom the delivery of services under the ongoing government transformation agenda would be built on"
He advised the perceived fertiliser cartel to go out and deal directly with farmers since government will no longer handle issues of fertiliser procurement and distribution, instead the money would be placed in the hands of farmers through a voucher system.
The key benefits of the fertiliser voucher system is that real farmers would access fertiliser at cheaper rates, and the distribution would be private sector driven; thereby encouraging market competition and price stability.
Notable Points
Good as the project appears, it is obvious that the exercise would have to battle with duplication of data as many farmers who belong to one or two related agricultural associations and institutions such as ADPs, FADAMA, USAID- MARKET, might have their names captured from an existing data in those associations/institutions, which forms part of primary sources of data collection for National Farmer Database.
However, an official statement from the secretariat allayed the fear and gave an assurance that the software developed for this exercise would automatically eliminate any duplication as data collected would be concurrently checked with existing data bases of INEC, National Communication Commission (NCC), National Identity Card, and Drivers License respectively.
It is hoped that, if the federal government's transformation agenda really goes the way it is promised, Nigeria may be gradually moving from food insecurity to food surplus.
Mallam Idris Mohammed is a rice farmer from one of the states in Northern Nigeria. He is well known for producing on a yearly basis one of the best locally-made rice by the people in his community.
The current government efforts are in ensuring that the country not only produces enough rice for local consumption, but has excess for exportation.
But all efforts made by the government, through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to assist farmers like Mohammed proved abortive as his own popularity only falls within the four walls of his tiny village.
Mohammed is not the only farmer suffering from this 'non-assistance from government'; other hard working farmers from all over the country still getting little or no assistance at all from the relevant authorities.
Major Hitch
One major reason why this is so is because even the authorities that are supposed to assist these farmers don't even know how to get across to them, hence the nefarious activities of the so-called middlemen.
These men or women as the case may be, would approach the relevant places, pretended to be fighting for the farmers, get the necessary incentives, and at the end of the business day, sell them at a high rate for the same farmers they claim to be representing their interest.
Nigeria as an agrarian country, has over the years been unable to put in place adequate and up to date information of its farmers across the country, a situation that has brought little result to enormous government efforts to revitalise the sector as resources deployed to farmers hardly reach them.
With more government attention swinging to the agricultural sector and focusing on the development of agricultural commodity value chains, the need for information on the number of farmers, their location and the various farming activities they are involved in has become an obvious factor in the implementation of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of the current administration.
At the heart of it all is the challenge of paucity of data in terms of farmer population, cropping area and production output.
Farmers Database
The National Farmers' Database exercise by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is expected to fill the gap and make agricultural financing and inputs support more efficient by ensuring that the target group, which are the farmers, get adequate inputs and other supports meant for them to promote food production and ensure food security.
An effective farmers database would enable government implements its growth enhancement support, provides multiple and efficient services of the agricultural commodity value chains, facilitate a good monitoring and evaluation processes for any resources deployed to the sector as well as ensure a more real time advisory services to rural farmers.
According to Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the government thought it wise to know its farmers and establish an efficient link with them because gone are the days when only few benefited from government assistance to farmers.
The ministry said the data collected, is being used by agricultural stakeholders in both the private and public sectors in budgeting, community planning and policy formulation.
A comprehensive, credible and reliable data of farmers' basic information such as gender, size of farmland, types of agricultural activities, income and access to inputs and markets among others is critical to the success of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda and to the realisation of government's vision as well as to quality and nutritious food availability.
"This survey is expected to provide an opportunity for the collation of verifiable and well harmonised data of farmers to whom the delivery of services under the ongoing government transformation agenda would be built on"
He advised the perceived fertiliser cartel to go out and deal directly with farmers since government will no longer handle issues of fertiliser procurement and distribution, instead the money would be placed in the hands of farmers through a voucher system.
The key benefits of the fertiliser voucher system is that real farmers would access fertiliser at cheaper rates, and the distribution would be private sector driven; thereby encouraging market competition and price stability.
Notable Points
Good as the project appears, it is obvious that the exercise would have to battle with duplication of data as many farmers who belong to one or two related agricultural associations and institutions such as ADPs, FADAMA, USAID- MARKET, might have their names captured from an existing data in those associations/institutions, which forms part of primary sources of data collection for National Farmer Database.
However, an official statement from the secretariat allayed the fear and gave an assurance that the software developed for this exercise would automatically eliminate any duplication as data collected would be concurrently checked with existing data bases of INEC, National Communication Commission (NCC), National Identity Card, and Drivers License respectively.
It is hoped that, if the federal government's transformation agenda really goes the way it is promised, Nigeria may be gradually moving from food insecurity to food surplus.