On Monday, the Federal Government revealed its plan to increase the agricultural extension workforce to 75 000. This will cut across various value chains to ensure efficient and self-sufficiency in food production, which is in tandem with global best practices.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammad Nanono, made this known while flagging off extension agents’ training in the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory, FCT. This capacity building programme is taking place in all 37 Headquarters of the State’s Agricultural Development Projects, ADPs.
Nanono expressed his concerns over the declining fortunes of the agricultural extension system. He said the challenge was traceable to reduced funding, policy changes, decreased manpower, and lack of interest of young people in the agriculture business. These factors had seriously affected food production and made the country vulnerable to unemployment, youth restiveness, and economic instability.
The Minister also said the training is one of the many strategies in place by his Ministry to stop the sad decline in the agricultural extension system to pursue the “revitalization agenda of the Nigerian economy by the FG.”
The Agriculture and Rural Development’s Minister further stated, “At the inception of this administration, a special committee on the ‘Revitalization of Agricultural Extension Service in Nigeria’ was constituted to, among others, recommend appropriate institutional structures, arrangements and capacity building for the delivery of effective and efficient pluralistic agricultural extension and advisory services in Nigeria using globally acceptable approaches and platforms.
Nanono revealed, “One of the key recommendations was to build the capacity of youth and existing practitioners in agricultural extension delivery system, exposing and equipping them with best global practices and tools to enable them to deliver with efficiency.
The training is commencing in Abuja and the rest of the states will follow suit. The training will continue until we achieve our target of 75,000 extension workers in three years.
“We are already at 45,000 extension workers, both government and the private. And I think our target is achievable. Most people, especially youths, take agriculture as unimportant, but you eat and must remember that somebody is producing these crops and we must enable him with agriculture facilities,” the Minister added.
It is crucial the pioneers in the extension space take this capacity building trainings serious and strive to become farmers themselves. They can become effective extension workers and also become farmers in the process.
The Minister explained, “Agriculture is rapidly becoming an attractive business and youth makes up about 75 per cent of our population, and therefore if we are going to move forward, the youth must make sacrifices, and the government must empower youth to go into agriculture, and that is what we are committed and set to do. So I am hoping that this is the beginning of a new era in the development of extension service in this country.”
Though Nanono acknowledged the challenges extension services are facing, which includes people are poor at heart, disorganized and being concerned by politics. There is a need to organize ourselves and focus on rescuing the agriculture sector from metamorphosing into an unproductive industry as this will help in developing the nation.
The Minister also lamented the Nigerian beans’ rejections by the EU, who banned the food item from entering the member countries due to chemicals used for its preservation.
For the past two years, Nigeria has been banned from exporting red beans. This is caused by high level of chemicals used in its preservation, which is considered unsafe for consumption by International regulatory bodies. If the extension workers are actively there, farmers would not have made the grave mistake.
