Bill
By Femi Ogunshola
Abuja, June 27, 2024 (NAN) The Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) and others critical stakeholders in the agriculture sector have resolved to present Agricultural Extension Revitalisation Bill (AERB) to the Senate Committee on Agriculture for consideration.
Hajia Salamatu Garba, Executive Director, WOFAN, disclosed this at the WOFAN ICON 2 project, supported by the Mastercard Foundation in Abuja.
Garba said that the bill would sustain food security in Nigeria and also strengthen and prioritise the agricultural extension system.
She said that if the bill became and act, it would help Nigerians farmers to get things right in the agriculture sector.
According to her, WOFAN is currently working with 675,000 farmers in 10 states in Nigeria and 1500 extension workers.
She said extension workers were not properly supported.
“It is one of the reasons why they are supporting a system that will bring in more extension services,” she said.
Garba emphasised that once the capacity of retention workers was built, the capacity of farmers would also be positively affected.
Prof Ikani Emmanuel, the Executive Director, National Agricultural Extension Research Liaison Services, Zaria, highlighted the importance of an extension bill.
According to him, so far, extension delivery service in Nigeria has been unorganised and there is no law backing it.
He explained that, through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, they were able to produce an agricultural extension policy that was passed by the Federal Executive Council.
“That makes it a policy but to implement or enforce it, we needed to convert it to an act of parliament.
“And that is why, for six months, we have been working on how to convert the policy into a language that can go to the National Assembly as a draft bill for them to consider and pass so that it can become a law.”(NAN)(www.nannews.ng
ODF/MAM/CJ/
Edited by Modupe Adeloye and Chijioke OKoronkwo
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