Beyond Formulation Of Agric Policies..(I)

Agriculture has been and will continue to be  of great importance to mankind, Nigeria, to be specific,  as it benefits the farmer, society, and nations at large. It is prominent in food production for an ever-increasing  population like ours, a serious  source of employment, and provider of income to farmers. Its contribution to foreign exchange is immeasurable as industries depend largely on  it for their supply  of raw materials.
From the point of acknowledging and appreciating the role and place of  agriculture in the development and sustained growth of the economy, to the point of instituting agricultural projects that could be harnessed to bring to limelight, the potentials needed for our development and wellbeing is a huge gap. Thus,  to close the gap and promote the growth of the agricultural sector,  nations including Nigeria, draft policies and programs. Within the last 30 decades, Nigeria has had many agric policies ranging from Agricultural Cooperatives Policy, Agricultural Statistics and Data Bank Policy, National Fisheries Policy, Agricultural By-Product Policy, Forest Products and Wildlife Policy, Industrial Crop Production Policy to Rural Infrastructure Policy.
Aside the aforementioned policies of the Federal Government of Nigeria, it has had agricultural extension, technology development and transfer policy, established solely to  circulate useful and pragmatic information on agriculture aimed at improving the welfare of farmers upon application of such disseminated information. By this policy, the various state governments were to ensure that extension services channel  aids  in technology transfer, by the provision of sufficient training infrastructure and facilities. Other techniques supposed to be  employed to achieve the set objective of this policy were; the stimulus of private sector investment in agricultural information dissemination and the establishment of effective channels of communication among researchers, extensions officers, and farmers.
The lack of availability of funds to farmers to facilitate their agribusinesses, especially those of the rural extraction, which of course had been identified as  the bane of the  advancement of agriculture in Nigeria, led to the establishment of Agricultural  Credit Policy. Its main objective centred  on putting together adequate investment funds easily accessible to farmers at rates to induce growth in the agricultural subsector. This is achieved by the implementation of strategies that include, a 10 per cent increase in loans and advance allocations to agriculture, modification of interest rates to allow the Nigerian Agricultural and Cooperative Bank (NACB) access funds from sources other than the Central Bank, and monitoring of the system to ensure adherence to guidelines. The substitution of Certificate of Occupancy with Customary Occupancy Rights as the collateral requirement for government funds facilitates the procurement of agricultural loans by small-scale farmers.
Then came the Agricultural Product Marketing Policy,  aimed at encouraging exports of agricultural products and the efficient distribution of seasonal agricultural produce all through the year at affordable prices. By this, the government was to deliver incentives to agricultural exporters,  inspect  products to be exported by state and federal Produce Inspection Service Guarantee Ideal Standard, as well as provide  infrastructure such as road, markets, and storage facilities to foster the development of agriculture, among other strategies in this regard. The Agricultural Research Policy sought to achieve the development of improved seedlings, seeds, and fingerlings capable of high yield, development of better efficient ways for farmers to engage in farming activities like planting, harvesting, processing, and storage of farm produce,  and the optimal utilisation of fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and other farm inputs to mitigate the adverse effects on man and the environment. Others included; Agricultural Mechanisation Policy, Agricultural Commodity Storage Policy, Land Resources Policy, Pest Control Policy, Water Resources Development Policy, Agricultural Commodity Processing Policy, Agricultural Insurance Policy, among others.
The Agricultural Insurance Policy  was actually set up to ensure Nigerian farmers are protected against unplanned incidences of natural disasters that usually come along with attendant negative consequences. Through the mechanisms put in place by the Government of the Federation, the agricultural insurance scheme was introduced to cover loan beneficiaries, create funds and implement policies as well as  mobilise  funds for investment to farmers by Insurance companies to spur agricultural production. While these policies put in place by different successive governments were commendable efforts at improving the lots of farmers subsistent and commercial, their implementation strategies could not serve much, a reason for which the agriculture sector in Nigeria is still struggling to find its feet, a nation endowed with large expanse of arable land, across the four cardinal points still wallow in hunger and abject poverty.
It is thus against this backdrop that the need to resort to the school as foundation building mechanism had become imperative. All over the world, educational institutions are known mainly as a platform used directly or indirectly to influence the general life of a person. The government, in most cases, through the school, plans and leads the study of experience, and also contributes to the continuous growth of an individual through the systematic reconstruction of knowledge and experience. Having known knowledge as a dynamic and functional element, there is every need to have it constantly reconstructed, especially in accordance with the change of time. This is why in various spheres of life, interested parties always prefer using education to solve issues that limit social orientation and thinking. The founder and chairman of the World Summit on the Fight Against Corruption, Harry Smorenberg, realised this for which he said that “teaching financial literacy as a subject in schools helped other countries increase access to financial products and services.”

By: Sylvia ThankGod-Amadi