By Felix Khanoba
The Small-Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON), along with other key stakeholders, has called for the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to collaborate on creating a comprehensive agricultural policy for the FCT.
The call was made during a one-day State Level Stakeholders Consultative Meeting on the 2024 FCT Agriculture Budget, organised in partnership with ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) and the FCTA’s Agriculture and Rural Development Secretariat (FCT-ARDS), under the Scaling Up Public Investments in Agriculture (SUPIA) project on Wednesday in Abuja.
A communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, endorsed by SWOFON, FCT-ARDS, Trade Network Initiative (TNI), the National Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTS), among others and available to newsmen, expressed the need for the collaboration to ensure food security in the nation’s capital.
“FCTA should collaborate with CSOs to support it in organizing a stakeholder meeting for the purpose of developing an agricultural policy for FCTA to enhance agricultural development and economic integration in the FCT.
” The Policy will inform and guide budgetary allocation to critical areas that need support towards food security and fostering of smallholder farmer livelihood (mostly women) within the FCT,” it said.
The communique also expressed the need for FCTA to increase budgetary allocation to its agriculture secretariat to ensure the massive development of the sector.
While saying they observed that there was drastic increase in the total allocation to the FCTA 2024 Statutory Appropriation of the total sum of N1.147trillion which is way higher than previous years appropriations, the participants said the allocation to Agriculture Secretariat of the sum of ₦7.6 billion representing 0.67% shows that agricultural development is not a priority sector in 2024 Statutory Appropriation.
“We call on the FCT Administration to increase budgetary allocation to agriculture secretariat by honouring the 2014 Malabo commitment of investing at least 10% of its total budget to promote sustainable agriculture toward stimulating at the least 3% growth stated by the Nigeria Government, ” it said.
While lamenting the zero allocation to Agricultural Credit in the FCTA-ARDS 2024 budget, the communique said such action would affect agricultural financing for smallholder farmers especially women that form the higher numbers, even as it expressed concerns on the meagre allocation to research.
“We also observed that the allocation of ₦55,500,000.00 to Research and Development in the 2024 appropriation budget was too small to support research and development activities for the fiscal year under review,” it said.
The participants at the meeting therefore made several recommendations to turn around the fortunes of the agric sector.
” We recommend that the FCTA should involve Smallholder women farmers and Civil Society Organizations in the sector’s budget preparation, approval, monitoring, and evaluation processes.
” We call on NASS and the FCTA to sustain commitment towards timely completion of budget processes to support timely releases of funds for agricultural activities since it is mostly time-bound.
” We recommend that FCTA increase allocation to extension service in the area of recruitment of new extension workers especially female extension agents to replace the aging and retiring ones towards the growth and support of extension service to smallholder farmers.
“FCTA to increase allocation to budget line item that can help reduce the high incidence of post- harvest losses in the FCT.
” There is an urgent need for incremental allocation for the issue of women in agriculture to reflect the high cost of agricultural inputs and service as ways to enhance their continued participation in food production and security.
” We call on the Agriculture Secretariat of the FCTA to allocate more resources for inputs such as seedling, livestock, fisheries, etc other than fertilizer to promote agricultural development in all its ramification.
” We recommend an upward review to the Women-in-agriculture budget line in order to drive at least 40% yearly increase in women participation in agriculture
” FCTA is called upon to sustain allocation for coordination which will improve knowledge sharing with stakeholders toward improving the agriculture governance in the FCT.
” Call for increase to value chain development to enhance value addition to produce and market value of items for farmers,” the communique said.
