The impact of the Agriculture Transformation Agenda (ATA) in 2014, according to experts, has contributed in making agriculture a viable sector of the Nigerian economy. Hence, there are anticipations among many Nigerians that agriculture will, in the face of plummeting oil prices, serve as a buffer for the Nigerian economy. Ruth Tene Natsa in this analysis concludes that 2015 will be a defining year for Nigeria’s agriculture.
The federal government with great optimism had asserted that “with the ATA on course, the fall in the price of oil or devaluation of the naira will not lead to the collapse of the Nigerian economy in 2015 but rather the stringent commitments and investments in the sector will yield high dividends that create buffer for the economy in 2015”.
The Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), launched in 2012, is an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development to support the President Goodluck Jonathans Transformation Agenda.
The goal of the ATA is to build commodity value chains and the institutions required to unlock the country’s huge agricultural potentials with the targeted outcome such as add 20 million tonnes of food to the domestic food supply by 2015, create 3.4 million jobs and ensuring import substitution through the acceleration of production of local staples; aimed at reducing dependence on food imports and turning Nigeria into a net food exporter
A major success story of the ATA in 2014, was the news that Nigerian Food import bill had dropped by N466bn thereby adding N780bn to the economy during the period.
While Many Nigerians have applauded the development in the nation’s agricultural sector, many are also of the view that the claims to a drop in the nations’ food import bill does not correspond with markets development as the prices of food and agricultural commodities have remained on the rise despite claims to huge gains in the sector.
For Mrs Danbaba, a housewife living within the FCT there is no doubt that success is being made in the agricultural sector, because we hear something every day in the news but I am really worried that despite all the gains not many lives are being transformed and prices of goods and produces are still the same.
For his part, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adeshina said, “ We knew to diversify the economy and we have, because of the food production and the fact that we have produced over 21 million metric tonnes of additional food that has created the buffer that we see today.”
Speaking with LEADERSHIP at the launch of the Youth Empowerment in Agriculture “YEAP” in Abuja recently, he said that the YEAP is President Jonathan’s flagship programme to raise a new cadre of young farmers and agro-business leaders in Nigeria. “The program targets women and men aged between 18-35 years from across Nigeria with the aim of providing them with decent employment along priority agricultural value chains,”Adesina said.
He added that the program aims to reach 760,000 youths over a period of 5 years with necessary support to establish and run wealth creating agric-business enterprises with the targeted beneficiaries being market oriented youths.
“With the YEAP programme, it is expected that the common youth drudgery to agriculture will be revamped and there will be a new injection of young brains and energy into the sector,” said Adesina.
Pointers in 2014 had indicated that the agricultural sector was experiencing its greatest boom since the discovery of oil in the late 60s with the setting up of ATA aimed at making agriculture more attractive to not just the ageing farmers but to Youths through the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES).
The GES was designed to capture agricultural development following a value chain approach of various commodities to capture all interest groups including men, women and the youths with the launch of Nagropreneus by the President in 2012.
Records sourced with the Ministry showed that over 14 million farmers had been registered in the ATA data base to benefit from the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES), with over 10 million of those farmers being northern beneficiaries.
“We developed Nigeria’s first ever database of farmers, so we can identify farmers and manage farmers identity,” said Adesina.
“Over 14.5 million farmers have been registered in the past three years”. Despite the optimism of government, stakeholders have expressed doubt at the level of success, insisting that the figures of success are not tallying with reality.”
Reacting to the success of the ATA, Chairman Board of Trustees, National Agricultural Foundation of Nigeria (NAFN), Senator Abdullahi Adamu called on the federal government through to furnish Nigerians with concrete up to date and correct information, backed with figures and statistics on all the various aspects of the implementation, achievements and failures of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA)
The Lawmaker lamented “that a sector that once produced all the nations food requirements with a lot left for export, employed over 70% of the nation’s active workforce and contributes up to 40% to GDP and 6% of foreign exchange earnings have been left to decay, with its growth stunted due largely to years of neglect of the sector”.
“Our country in the 60s was a major player in the global food market, it is no longer the case today, now we cannot feed ourselves, we import food to the tune of about 3b USD, we import food items at the rate of about 11% which is unsustainable,”Adamu said.
He assured the support of government saying, “We are in full support of and have been doing all we can to ensure the success of Mr Presidents ATA with its stated mission of achieving hunger free Nigeria, it is adoption of an overall strategic focus instead of isolated projects, its plan to develop strategic partnerships to stimulate investments, its focus on the creation of value chains and its emphasis on job creation and empowerment of millions of Nigerians.”
Meanwhile records from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development have revealed that Private sector investments in fertilizer manufacturing has expanded, with over $5 billion private sector investments in fertilizer manufacturing in the past three years.
It further revealed that the sector witnessed a turn around as the share of total bank lending expanded from about 2% in 2011 to 5% by 2013. Bank lending to seed companies and agro-input dealers expanded from $10 million in 2012 to $53 million in 2013; while bank lending to fertilizer companies expanded from $100 million in 2012 to $500 million by 2014.
Ruth Tene Natsa (Jan 2, 2015)
source:https://leadership.ng/