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Agricultural Extension Legislation will Support A Resilient System – Minister
By Shalom Oludele
The honourable minister of state for Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Aliyu S. Abdullahi, CON, has said that legislating the agriculture extension services will be a very necessary addition to supporting a resilient system for the nation’s food security.
Speaking in Abuja at the Stakeholders Forum on Agricultural Extension Services organised by the Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) ICON2, a project of Mastercard Foundation, the minister emphasized the need to ensure that farmers get required technical support, for optimal outputs and improved income.
The bill which has passed the first reading at the Senate, is designed to establish an agricultural extension service binded by a law, to aid the productivity of extension workers, regulate the stakeholders that will plug into the extension system, open up space for private-public sector partnership, and ensure the protection of farmers.
Among others, the extension services bill will also strengthen the capacity of extension workers to deliver advanced, technology and demand-driven services, help to foster government priority in terms of agriculture, as well as close up the very wide gap between extension workers and farmers.
The minister said: “Laws are designed to solve problems and the Nigeria Agricultural Extension Service Bill as we should begin to call it, is designed to promote extension delivery across the various farming communities in the country.
“With what the president desires us to do, to transform our food system into a sustainable system that will guarantee our national food security, having an extension legislation will be a very necessary addition to supporting a resilience system.”
He added that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is keen about having a country where no man goes to bed hungry, and the extension law will be an enabler for this.
“It will also show commitment on the part of this government, under our visionary president, His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who desires a country where no man goes to bed hungry, which means food should be available all over the place.
“So, how to produce this food is what extension agents are designed to help you achieve, to show you good agronomic practices, to teach you how to plant, when to plant, where to plant and how to take care of what you have planted, how to harvest, how to process, and all of that.
He further stated that extension workers will help farmers go through the journey of generically good agricultural practices, “Extension agents will help you go through that journey, and if there are new innovative ways of farming, extension agents will bring the news to you. So they are very positive addition to how farmers are supposed to operate.”
He commended the initiative of the WOFAN ICON2 to take the lead of pushing the bill at the Senate, the efforts put in place to put up the documents for the extention, and also said he aligned with the agric extention bill.
Dr. Salamatu Garba, the country project director of the WOFAN Icon2 Project, who expounded on the significance of having a successful Agricultural Extension Service System, said the bill is to have a well designed extension system in Nigeria where rules and responsibilities will be spelt out, at the national, state, and local government levels.
She said there is need for the farmers to know their rights.
“We want the farmers to know what exactly are their rights and what they deserve. We want to have an e-extension system that will be able to meet the ever growing population in Nigeria.
“We also want to build the capacity of extension workers so that they will be able to deliver more, and without sending this bill into a legislative act that will give us a mandate, or make it legal, then it means people can play around with it,” adding that the extention bill will contribute to boosting agricultural development and food production in Nigeria.
Speaking further, Hajia Salamatu said this is the right time for Nigeria to pass such a bill into the law.
“For us, this is the right time to pass a bill like this, now that every mouth is hungry in the country, it is the period we all need to bring extension workers together, build their capacity and make sure we are getting a sustainable agricultural system in the country.
“We are achieving nothing if our research institutions cannot produce the required extension workers for us,” saying it is also a time that research institutions need to be supported.
“And all the researches that were done, we want to see that they are translated into actione, and let them be able to use this research to go to the field and make sure that farmers benefit from them,” she added.
She informed that the proposed bill is getting the needed support from the representatives of the National Assembly and the Senate, having handed over a copy of the draft to the chairman Senate Committee on Agriculture.
Narrating his ordeal, the chairman, Rice Miller Association of Nigeria, Mr. Peter Dama, said he had suffered waste of energy and resources, largely as a result of lack of an established rule guiding extension services in Nigeria,
He said extention service legislation should be given the seriousness it deserves, for best agricultural practices in the country.
The forum pointed out that there is an urgent need to create an innovative system that will take researched products to farmers, which will contribute to food security in Nigeria, and the proposed Agricultural Extension Services Bill stands to achieve this.
It also noted that all the landmarks in south west Nigeria today were all products of agriculture, as agriculture earned Nigeria the “Giant of Africa”, emphasizing that if it worked before, it can work again.
The forum was well attended by representatives of stakeholders from public and private sectors, non-governmental organisations, and other relevant bodies and individuals.