CSOs, farmers’ group seek involvement in agric budget process

A coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) and Small-scale Women Farmers’ Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON) Wednesday urged the Kwara House of Assembly to always involve the organizations for articulation of informed decisions.

Daily times, reports that the organisations were in the house on a parliamentary briefing of the Analysis of Kwara 2018 Agricultural Budget and Recommendations by its Budget Committee of the Public Financing of Agriculture Project.

Mr. Abdurrahman Ayuba of the Centre for Community Empowerment and Poverty Eradication (CCEPE), who led the group, stressed the need for opportunities that would enable smallholder women farmers to participate in prioritizing government agriculture initiatives.

Ayuba noted that the 2.92 per cent budgetary provision for agriculture in the 2018 budget of N181.8 billion fell short of the Maputo declaration of 10 per cent budgetary allocation for agriculture.

He, however, commended that the 2.92 per cent was an improvement on the abysmal 0.43 per cent in 2017.

The group also recommended an easy access to cheap credit for the farmers particularly the smallholder women farmers.

The report also faulted a meager allocation for extension service in the budget, explaining that if necessary impact must be made in the Agric sector, extension workers should be more visible.

“We advocate that budget statement must be clear and explicit, while the location and beneficiary local government and community of the budget line item must be properly stated.

“There should be a properly established monitoring and evaluation unit for the purpose of carrying out Monitoring and Evaluation functions.

“We recommend that this unit should co-opt CSOs and farmers in the state should be part of any monitoring exercise.

“Taking into consideration their strategic role in food production and other aspects of agriculture value chain, we recommend that women in agriculture should be encouraged by making appropriate allocation to their budget line and it should be commensurate with their efforts”, he said.

In his response, Mr Ishiaku Adam the Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture and Water Resources stated that the problem with agriculture in the state was lack of political will.

He asserted that until President Muhammadu Buhari came into power, a lip service was paid to the issue of agriculture.

He, however, promised to work with the organisations to ensure that sanity was brought to the budget process in the state particularly in the area of agriculture.

Adam applauded the committee for the analysis, saying that the effort of the group was enough to let the executive know that some people were watching.

He agreed with the observation of the group that the state government was not doing enough for farmers, saying that it took the house effort to raise the budgetary provision for Agriculture in 2017 from N350 million to N7 billion.

According to him, the house also faces lots of challenges in the course of oversight function as provisions made for farmers are not always cash-backed.

In her remark, Hajia Bilikis Lawal, the Vice President of SWOFON blamed urban density on lack of motivation to agriculture among the youth.

She noted that women farmers faced a lots of challenges in accessing farmland, credit facilities and farm input among others making the farming job a tedious one for the folks.