Women farmers’ groups in Ebonyi State have appealed to the Government at all levels to invest more in agriculture as a way of ending the food insecurity in the Country.
They noted that increased investment in agriculture would lead to increase in the agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to at least 6%.
They made the appeal during a Stakeholders’ Consultative Meeting on 2025 Agriculture Budget organised by the Participatory Development Alternatives in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Budget Committee Group and Smallholder Women Farmers Organizations with support from Actionaid-Nigeria.
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They further called on Government to develop and enforce policies and laws to regulate use of pesticides so as to prohibit hazardous agro chemicals in order to sustain a healthy agroecology.
The groups also called on the State Government and State Houses of Assembly to scale up public investment in agriculture and ensure timely consideration, passage, and timely budget releases and utilization as a strategic approach to increase food production.
They noted that such proactive actions necessary to reduce hunger and poverty and achieve the Maputo/Malabo Commitments.
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“Lawmakers should ensure that their proposed zonal intervention 5 constituency) projects are agricultural and evidence-based to create meaningful impact in the communities.
“The State Ministry of Agriculture and other departments and agencies should ensure widers stakeholder consultations in the budget formation, provide continued coordination and the implementation of the stakeholders consultative meeting on the agriculture budget annually at the local and state levels”, they said.
“These strategic areas of investments include extension services, access to credit, women in Agriculture, youth in agriculture, appropriate labour-serving technologies, inputs, post – harvest losses reduction support, irrigation , climate resilient sustainable agriculture/ agroecologt, research and development, monitoring and evaluation, as well as coordination.
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“State should begin to develop pesticide policies and enforce the legislation that prohibits hazardous agrochemicals , and a significant shift made towards sustainable farm systems like agroecology.
“To achieve this, the government needs to develop a safe sustainable food strategy that reduces the use of highly toxic synthetic chemical pesticides by 50% by 2030: 25% by 2040, a maximum of 5% by 2050 and strong support to be given to farmers in their transition towards agroecology”, they said.
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