Hajia Salamatu Garba, Executive Director, Women Farmers Advancement Network, WOFAN has disclosed her association’s move to present Draft Agricultural Extension Revitalization Bill to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture due to the raging food crises in the country. The bill is basically to ensure sustainability of food security across the country, hence agricultural extension system needs to be prioritized to meet food demands of Nigerians and also create wealth for Nigerians.
According to Garba, WOFAN Icon 2 Project is supported by Mastercard Foundation, works through extension services, and currently working with 675,000 farmers in 10 States in Nigeria and 1,500 extension workers to boost food production, which she asserted that extension workers are not properly supported, which prompted them to give their support to them and the system, and building their capacity will also lead to building farmers’ capacity in the agriculture space.
“We are at the level of rounding up, it is so interesting how the various stakeholders have come together, we have moved it from zero to first draft, second draft, we did the third one and we are even revising the third draft and we have come to a conclusion.
“What we need to do now is clean up based on other recommendations that have come today, then we print them and hand them over to the Chairman Senate Committee on Agriculture.
“The Senate will now be picking it up and they will invite the Ministry and the relevant stakeholders and they will revisit it before they domesticate it.
“We are not talking about a bill that will create any controversy, it is a bill that will sustain food security in Nigeria. If we strengthen and prioritize the agricultural extension system, we are going to get it right.”
Prof Ikani Emmanuel, Executive Director, National Agricultural Extension Research Liaison Services, NAERLS, Zaria, harped on the importance of an Extension bill, lamented lack of organization of agricultural extension delivery service in Nigeria and without law backing it, through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, NAERLS was able to produce an agricultural extension policy that was passed by the Federal Executive Council, FEC.
“That makes it a policy, but to implement or enforce, we needed to convert it to Act of Parliament, and that is why for six months, we have been on how to convert the policy into a language that can go to the National Assembly as a draft bill for them to consider and pass it so that it can become a law.
“Agriculture is scientifically driven, it is about skills, and extension is the vehicle that conveys the knowledge that is demanded to transit from crude farming to scientific and commercial agriculture”, he said.
Hajia Maimuna Lawal, Executive Director, Green Pillars Enterprise, said the Bill made provision to meet the needs of women in agriculture including Persons With Disability, PWD, therefore, how agricultural extension services beneficial to them in order to boost their productivity.
“So, this is going to be really beneficial because extension is the lifeline of agriculture, it is the medium (where) we translate innovations into action and a medium where farmers can access and understand what they need to do on their farms and how to improve on it generally”.
