Farming and paper farmers problems in Nigeria

By Mohammed Kaka Misau

Farming is the only solution to Nigeria’s food insecurity in which both federal and state governments have been injecting a lot funds into. However, poor implementation, supervision, monitoring and above all politicalisation of such programs have hampered its success. It is no doubt that allocating slot of candidates to those who are in the corridors of power or political foot soldiers has always frustrated the success of the programmes.

The Federal government has over the years initiated a lot of good policies in the agricultural sector but in process of implementing the program only those that have upper hand enjoyed the programs.

It is high time that the government create a unified policy aimed at supporting the farmers by creating a high power committee comprising of leaders of farmers groups at the ward levels (Sarkin Noma), Village heads, Youth farmers leaders, representatives of security Agencies, District Heads, councillors, with Agricultural extension worker as the Chairman. In the setting, all allocation should go direct to the community for distribution, this will address the problem stocking and hoarding of fertilizer and other farming inputs at central stores or local Government headquarters.

It should be the responsibility of the beneficiary community to follow up and make sure that the number of farming inputs allocated are correctly received. There is the urgent need for government to subsidize farming inputs to enable less privileged farmers to afford. There is the need for government to tailor its policy such that only real farmers benefit from the government intervention in the agricultural sector and not paper farmers. It is equally important to assert that both business people, civil Servants, students and the general public should concentrate more on farming for better future, especially we from the Northern part of the country.