Voices for Food Security (VFS) a network of agricultural professionals promoting food security and advocating for increased investment in agriculture, has called on the government to intervene and support amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although, the body, comprising of civil society and non-governmental agricultural stakeholders commended the government’s effort at ensuring that the Emergency Economic Stimulus Bill was signed into law, and the Central Bank’s plans to inject N3.5 trillion into the economy.
However, VSF expressed concerns regarding efforts to strengthen the economy following the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, stating that smallholder farmers across the country have incurred serious losses.
“Most recent Federal Government guidelines for the movement of agricultural produce to curtail food shortages and ensure effective 2020 crop production is appreciated.
However, there is still silence on how smallholder farmers who have already suffered losses can be compensated,” the group said in a statement.
“We observe that these palliatives and recovery windows may well work for the manufacturing and other sectors, but we are concerned that they do not adequately cover the needs of the agricultural sector,” the group said.
VFS observed that though agriculture has been termed a key sector for years, none of the relief efforts explicitly takes note of the issues facing agricultural sector stakeholders, adding that the fact that Farmers Associations are not strictly termed SMEs will make them ineligible for SME financing from the CBN.
Further highlighting the challenges these farmers face during this period, VFS said the total or partial closure of markets and restrictions on movement have a huge impact on farmers’ income and are also driving up the rate of post-harvest losses.
As a way out, VFS recommended strict adherence to the Federal Government directive by all government officials at all levels to work within the framework of the COVID 19 Emergency Action Response Plan; work with smallholder farmers associations and farmers support organisations.
It said state governments across the country should set-up measures to avoid any form of disturbance in the supply chain while maintaining security and food safety.
Key actors within the supply and value chain must be permitted and facilitated to continue working; adding that the federal and state-level ministries, as well as the CBN, should use this opportunity to better improve working relationships with farmers and processors across the country.
The group noted that too often, most agricultural support does not reach the real farmers and this reality cannot hold if the country is to attain food security.
The organisation further suggests that federal and state governments should improve coordination and work with civil society organizations as well as farmers associations to ensure that food palliative to poor farmers reaches the people who need them.
According to small households, grants should be extended to poor farmers at scale to enable them to stay afloat in this uncertain period, and effort should be made to ensure that these reach real male and female farmers.
It also pushed for the extension of access to finance facilities to ensure that farmer cooperatives and processing companies are able to procure technologies and inputs that will make their businesses grow.
Speaking also at the press conference, Victoria Adenike Bolujoko, president of Ayo-Ola Corporative Agricultural Multipurpose Society, (CAMS) said the government should make farming equipment available as farmers lose money to clearing the thick forest.
