Stakeholders in the agriculture sector have called on ministries of agriculture at both state and federal levels to increase funding to the agriculture sector to enhance food production.
Rising from a one-day state level dialogue on the Nigeria agriculture sector performance on the second Africa Union biennial review report sponsored by ActionAid in conjunction with Hope for the lonely, the participants said concerted efforts must be made to tackle hunger and sustain food availability in Nigeria.
Gombe state Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry was urged to identify necessary data, map it with relevant MDA’s and build stakeholders’ capacity on understanding the definition of all indicators of the comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.
The communiqué which was made available to newsmen also urged the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to encourage Gombe state government to include biennial review activities in their agriculture budget for a more effective process for facilitating national framework template for data generation and sharing amongst all stakeholders to address uncoordinated approach in the system.
It called on all stakeholder organisations to support and collaborate with Gombe state Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, Gombe state Ministry of Finance and FMARD in the future review process by making all relevant evidence-based data available in a timely manner, useable form and with credible sources.
It called for the adoption of one statistical system through resuscitation and harmonization of existing data generation instruments such as 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.
It recommended a ‘Needs Assessment and Scoping Exercise’ for agricultural data and analysis system in the country to harvest all available data and use it for the 2021 Biennial Review exercise and other applications to the assessment of any national sector plan.
