ABUJA, JULY 28, 2016 – The Federal Government says the new Agricultural Roadmap is set to tackle some challenges of the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme of the previous administration.This is contained in the 2016 Nigeria Agric Sector Policy Roadmap which was presented by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, to the Federal Executive Council and approved.
The roadmap which is to run from 2016 to 2020 stated that: “The Agriculture Promotion Policy, is aimed at building and improving on the challenges of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA).
“Access to inputs remains a challenge for achieving optimal productivity of agricultural outcomes.
“Attempt to address this issue in the previous government administration have resulted in subsidy programme known as GES which have been characterised by late or non-delivery of inputs.
“Other challenges encountered during the programme include delivery of sub-standard or counterfeit inputs and exclusion of rightful beneficiaries.
“The policy objective is to increase productivity by ensuring access to timely, high quality and price competitive inputs,” it explained.
The minister said that the roadmap would ensure the availability of timely and high quality inputs by stimulating domestic production of good quality inputs especially seeds and fertiliser.
He added that the document would improve the functioning of the Seed Council and ensure standards, quality control mechanisms at various points in the relevant supply chains.
The roadmap would also tackle issues like the financing, access to market, pest and disease control, mechanisation, storage facilities, processing among others.
GES is a Federal Government initiative designed to support the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of former President Goodluck Jonathan`s administration.
It is aimed at subsidising the costs of agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and seedlings for farmers.
Under the GES, 4.2 million farmers had received seeds and fertiliser in the 2013 farming season, while about 20 million people had been impacted through the GES initiative.
It was reports that with the GES scheme, Nigeria had reduced its food imports by over 40 per cent as of 2013, moving the country closer to self sufficiency in agriculture.
Although the scheme was productive it encountered challenges of corruption and the quality of seed distributed to farmers as well as financial claims spent on inputs for 2014 farming season.
