All Farmers Association of Nigeria has claimed that the United States government supports its programmes more than the Federal Government.
Chariman, AFAN, Lagos Branch, Otunba Femi Oke, explained that most of the exhibitions attended by the members were sponsored directly by the US Embassy as they paid their attendance fee with other incentives.
“Now we are preparing for a programme in the US in a few months. US Department of Agriculture offers us free training.
This is the kind of encouragement that we want our government, too, to do for our people, but what preparation are they doing? We have contacted the Nigerian Export Processing Council, one of the government agencies, to encourage our exporters to be able to sell their goods in an exhibition outside the country, but unfortunately, we didn’t see any of these people, especially Ministry of Agriculture,” he said.
According to him, there were other programmes organised for farmers by the US government abroad to encourage farmers and showcase their products to the world.
“We are partnering with other investors and in a few months time, a company called AGILITY, which has been sharing a bond with us for 10 years, will get a warehouse for storage of crops like vegetables so as to maintain the world standard of those crops in fresh condition all the time.
The company is even ready to provide its own source of power supply, instead of depending on the ever-epileptic Nigeria power system.
These are some of the areas that AFAN, as a body, has been involved in bringing investors into the country to partner with us,” he added. Oke also knocked the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration for what he described as lack of proper attention for the agriculture sector.
To him, allocating 1.2 per cent of the 2017 budget to the sector is an embarrassment.
“Allocating such meagre amount for a sector that generates about N96 billion for the country is nothing to write home about. But we still have hope, because things are settled now.
We believe that this government is doing a little but not much. We do appreciate its efforts, especially when oil has disappointed Nigeria, and they are diversifying to agriculture now.
“I went to Dubai farm exhibition and saw many countries with their ministers there, but to my surprise, Nigeria had no stands there.
These are some of the world exhibitions that we should encourage our farmers to attend and showcase produces so as to add value to them. Government should take more measures and cognisance in recognising farmers, especially AFAN,” he said.
