NACCIMA, Agric Stakeholders Express Worry Over Bottlenecks

The Nigerian Association of
Chambers of Commence,  Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) and stakeholders in the agricultural value chain have expressed concerns over the nation’s dwindling agricultural sector.
The National President of NACCIMA, Alhaji Mohammed Badaru said despite the sectors ability to transform the economy, it has continued to suffer neglect from the federal government.
Badaru made this remark at a one-day dialogue session on national agriculture value chain tagged. Enhancing Agriculture Exports through Adequate Financing for agric business stakeholders.
The NACCIMA boss who was represented at the event by the elected ex-officio member and president, Kaduna Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr Alimi Bello observed that the sector is still dominated by peasant farmers and still plagued with high interest rates which remain a major impediment to  financing the sector.
He said focusing on value chains where Nigeria has comparative advantage in the Growth Enhancement support (GES) Scheme, the federal government should provide 50 per cent.
He explained that the federal government  should provide 25 percent while state government should provide 25 per cent for the support of seeds and fertilizers to farmers directly and not through the general price subsidy. Badaru added that the meagre 23.7 per cent of 2014 budget of the federal government appropriated for capital expenditure will attract low investment in infrastructure.
The NACCIMA boss further called on the federal government to partner private sector to increase their  meagre amount. He also advised that farmers must be insured so that bank loans can be guaranteed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN). At the end of the dialogue session, the meeting issued a communiqué on the way forward for the agricultural sector, maintaining that the sector should be encouraged to reduce the number of peasant farmers through aggressive empowerment.
“Government should increase the budget to at least 10 per cent of the national budget”, he said.