Stakeholders advocate improvement in agric policy implementation

 

Stakeholders at an agriculture capacity building workshop have asserted that the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) if properly implemented will not only stimulate and facilitate agricultural performance it will also increase investment financing.
In a communique issued at the end of the training for media practitioners in Abuja on agriculture policies (CAADP, ECOWAP, APP, JSR, BR, NAIP, etc) in Nigeria, and signed by National President, National Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTS), Mr. Ken Ukaoha, participants acknowledged the several agric policies have been rolled out, adding that implementation has yet to yield the desired result.
“Notable among these are the SDGs, CAADP, ECOWAP and APP respectively; and that many of these policies have not yielded the expected three-pronged result of poverty reduction, food security and sustainable development. Governments at all levels must therefore wake up to the reality of the place of agriculture and implementation of the commitments to drive policy processes and investments thereto in the direction of poor farmers.”
Participants lamented Nigeria’s performance and level of commitment to the implementation of Malabo commitments, especially given that it was deeply involved in the evolution and development of the policy instrument.
Statistics on the implementation of the CAADP instrument showed that only 2 (namely; (i) commitment to the CAADP principles and (ii) boosting intra-regional agricultural trade) out of the 7 commitments have been realized by the country.
“More so, Nigeria scores only 3.4 out of the required minimum threshold of 3.9 percent of the maximum 10 percent benchmark. Similarly, the fact that available statistics shows that about 20% (about 36 million) of Nigerians are go to bed without food is a clear indication of Nigeria’s inadequate performance in CAADP, ECOWAP and APP implementation.
“Participants also lamented that the subject of improved storage facilities, extension service delivery and the introduction and application of new farming technologies are given poor attention. This is against the backdrop that these are components of CAADP commitments directly linked to reducing postharvest losses in order to address the challenge of food security and imports substitution,” they insisted.

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