Nigerian farmers claim that despite massive investments made in the agriculture industry, the cost of goods and food continues to rise.
According to The Punch, farmers from various regions of the country also attributed the failure of the government’s agricultural intervention schemes to the absence of key sector stakeholders’ input throughout the plan development process.
They praised President Bola Tinubu for declaring a state of emergency on food security but said that the country was embarrassed by the high cost of food at the moment.
The farmers brought up the issue at a roundtable discussion on the topic of “National food security under the current emergency situation in Nigeria.”
The Agriculture Development Project in Abuja organized the program for participants in the agricultural value chain, including seed and fertilizer manufacturers, mechanization service providers, technology/innovation support services, and farmers of rice, maize, wheat, maize, and cassava.
The majority of government activities and projects since 1960, including those during former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, according to ADP Convener Sadiq Daware, have all been plagued by the same twin evils of bad policy formation and flawed implementation.
He added that Nigeria had consistently been identified as one of the nations in the world with problems with food security.
He claimed that Nigerians could feed themselves and many other countries if they took the proper actions, as agriculture was formerly the country’s main source of income.
As major stakeholders in the agriculture industry, we are aware of the numerous admirable projects and programs launched by succeeding administrations since independence, according to Daware.
“However, we have observed with great dismay that from the very recent Anchor Borrowers’ Program of the Muhammadu Buhari administration to the Regional Agricultural Programs under the administrations of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Sir Tafawa Balewa from 1960–1966, they have all been plagued by the same twin evil of poor policy formulation and faulty implementation.
“Unfortunately, despite this obvious fact, every succeeding administration has chosen to operate in this flawed method, which has invariably resulted in failure of epic proportions.”
He added, “We cannot keep acting in the same way and expect different results.”
