By Dele Ogbodo
President Bola Tinubu has reiterated his commitment to making food security the topmost priority in his administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda even as he launched the 62-page manual on National Agricultural Extension Policy as a means of invigorating and making agricultural business attractive to the youths.
Agricultural extension, President Tinubu stated plays a critical role in bringing relevant and improved technologies developed by National Agricultural Research Institutions (NARIs), inputs suppliers and marketers to farmers.
The President who was represented by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi made the disclosure at 6th Africa-Wide Agricultural Extension Week in Abuja commended the Ministry for putting together the first ever harmonized extension manual in Nigeria and national agricultural extension policy.
He said the harmonized extension manual focuses on how to effectively disseminate and deploy agricultural innovations/technologies to end-users using appropriate extension methods, explaining that the manual will be of great benefit to extension administrators, subject matter specialists, extension agents as well as farmers along the agricultural value chains.
He said: “The National Extension Agricultural Extension policy seeks to provide a pragmatic, effective and efficient demand driven plurastic, ICT-enabled and market-oriented extension service to all stakeholders including youths, women, and people with special needs to optimally use resources to promote sustainable agriculture and socio-economic development of the country.
“Let me re-assure you that this government have renewed commitments towards attaining food security in line with the vision President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Renewed Hope Agenda in Nigeria.
“Our resolve is to develop the agricultural sector towards the attainment of the objectives of SDGs especially those of zero hunger and to improve agriculture and rural productivity. Nigeria current plan is to achieve self-sufficiency in food production and reduce dependency on food imports.
According to him, the theme of this year African extension week which is harnessing agricultural extension and advisory services in scaling regenerative agriculture and nature-based solutions for food system transformation in Africa cannot be more appropriate than this time.
He said: “It is indeed reassuring and pleasing to note that the present Federal Government recognized the huge potentials of agriculture as a key sector in driving the nation’s economy and as a tool to fight unemployment, hunger and poverty.
It is against this background that the present administration is pursuing a 8-point agenda which include food security; poverty eradication; growth, job creation and access to capital amongst others.
“The Federal Government seeks to restructure the economy from unnecessary borrowing to finance government programme activities as well as create jobs, achieve economic growth, “prosperity for all” and end poverty.
“Agriculture must be market oriented and move away from the subsistence farming been practiced by our smallholders farmers.
“In achieving this the government has come up with programmes such as National Agriculture Growth Scheme-Agro-pocket where millions of farmers are supported through training on good agricultural practices, certified inputs such as improved seeds and organic and inorganic fertilizers and irrigation equipment at highly subsidized prices to enhance their production, increase productivity and ultimately higher incomes to the farmers.”
The President appreciated the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS) for coming up with this great conference and also our development partners: USAID, GIZ, IFPRI amongst others for their support to this conference where African countries interact to channel the best course of action aimed at agricultural extension service delivery for agricultural prosperity, and also for their efforts that culminated in the production of Harmonized Extension Manual and National Extension Policy Document that will be launched today
It is therefore my pleasure to wish you all a very fruitful week-long deliberation and hereby declare this Sixth Africa-Wide Agricultural Extension Week Conference open, he said.