The Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Sen. Emmanuel Bwacha (PDP-Taraba),? says the agriculture sector will thrive better if the Federal Government dedicates 10 per cent of the national budget to it.
Bwacha, who made the statement in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja, lamented that not up to four per cent of Nigeria’s budget was committed to agriculture.
“For us as a government, to commit a substantial sum of money to the agriculture sector to make it different has become a problem.
“Countries across Africa which are far smaller than Nigeria are achieving results but for Nigeria, it has become a tremendous challenge.’’
He said that the committee had had course to disagree with the executive on agriculture's budge, adding the committee was thinking differently on how the sector should be funded.
According to Bwacha, the sector has a key role in the transformation agenda, particularly the value chain programme introduced by the current minister.
“We in the National Assembly believe that they should be given time to see how they are going to succeed. Our responsibility is to make sure we provide sufficient funds for them.’’
The committee chairman emphasised the need to empower agricultural research institutes which, he said, were warehouses for ideas and policy formulation.
The lawmaker said strengthening of research institutes would go a long in boosting the sector inputs to national development.
He expressed regrets that this was another area of disagreement between the committee and the executive since the transformation agenda seemed to be isolating the institutes.
Bwacha was, however, hopeful that the executive would see the need to ensure that research institutes were strengthened to achieve the transformation agenda.
On the recently introduced E-wallet system of fertiliser distribution, Bwacha said it was a laudable initiative that if allowed to succeed, would bring succour to local farmers.
“I know it is part of the programmes that are meant to give us a direction in curtailing the roles of middle men in the distribution of fertiliser.
“We are trying to see and encourage farmers to key into this process because we want to make fertiliser available as much as possible just as you walk into a shop and see coca cola to buy.’’
He, however, said the voucher system would still be on standby to supplement the E-wallet system if the challenge of network failure or low literacy level arose.
Bwacha gave the assurance that the committee would take its oversight function seriously and would not hesitate to expose any form of corruption.
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