As the need to grow more food arises amid high cost of food items, experts in the agricultural sector are putting more efforts towards pushing for an agricultural extension service delivery revitalisation bill.
The bill is expected to identify areas that Nigeria can use to bridge the gap of food security in order to feed it’s constantly growing population.
The Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) Project Director, Salamatu Garba disclosed this during it’s one-day multi-stakeholder meeting which identified agriculture as the backbone of the economic growth of any country.
The time for agriculture to shift from “farm” to “firm” in Nigeria has come.
This is a giant stride for industrializing the sector as well as for achieving food security, and reducing poverty rate to the barest minimum.
Nigeria was a self-sufficient agrarian economy, but over years the sector has lost it’s vitality.
Presently Nigeria is struggling with food to meet up the needs of it’s growing population.
The convergence of experts here, identified extension services as the game changer in food production.
The policy they’re proposing accommodated private sector involvement in extension services.
While noting that the public sector cannot effectively run extension services, for sustainability purposes, the private sector must play a key role in extension service delivery.
If Extension becomes effective, agriculture will change from being crude to modern agriculture and there will be food available for everybody and there will be security.
