The Civil Rights Concern (CRC) has indeed put its name on the mable in Anambra State as it has taken the civil rights interests of the people to almost all the sectors of governance in the state.
Latest in its numerous advocacies was the Committee of Stakeholders meeting in agriculture where farmers and other groups that have interest in farming met to discuss the achievements and challenges of the sector.
CRC is working with JDPC Onitsha, JDPC Awka and JDPC Nnewi and the national partners consisting of Center SLD and Development in Practicewho are also being supported by Christian Aid Nigeria and DFID in Voice to the People (V2P), making governance work for the poor and marginalized people of Anambra State.
Explaining why CRC organized the stakeholders meeting which held at FADAMA Hall, Ministry of Agriculture, Anambra State, the Executive Director, Mr. Okey Onyeka, said the organisation discovered capacity gaps in delivery of effective services in the state.
“We have assessed service delivery structures in Ministry of Education, Health, Agriculture, Public Utilities and we discovered that they have capacity gaps to deliver effective services both in terms of equipment and human capacity, human competencies. And now having reviewed their budgets, we have seen that truly the performance of their budgets over the years have been quite low; then we felt that since money came in, this kind of Paris Club fund, about N18 billion, there is money now to fill the capacity gap in service delivery, in terms of equipment, in terms of training human beings to do the work. We are saying that this money can be used to fill this capacity gap we discovered and the GDP of the state can move faster and grow.
“We also looked at the revenue side of the government and discovered that the capacity of these structures to deliver revenue is very weak also and they cannot really generate revenue to complement what government is doing unless you build the capacity of the human beings there and provide capacity in terms of equipment to do the work and, therefore, if they want to really grow they must develop the capacity to do the work and equipment also so that they can generate revenue and pay up to 50 per cent of the recurrent expenditure in the sectors.
Right now, there is no MDA that can pay up to 35 per cent of their recurrent expenditure; all of them are looking to government to do it.
But this cannot happen unless you have men and money capacity and equipment to deliver, so we are saying that they can use the Paris fund to bridge this capacity gap.”
The interactive session was attended by key project officers in the Ministry of Agriculture including FADAMA, Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP), Rural Finance Development Programme (RUFIN), Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATMA), All Farmers Association, (AFAN), Anambra State Association of Town Union (ASATU), Community Based Monitors (COMEN), National Programme for Food Security (NPFS), Civil Society Organizations and farmers’ cooperative associations.
The objectives of the meeting, according to the organizers, were: “To
discuss the current achievements in Anambra State agriculture. To review field monitoring evidence and challenges brought up by stakeholders in accessing agricultural sector programmes being implemented and to proffer suggestions to remove the challenges and improve productivity in the sector.”
Reviewing the key projects in the ministry, the stakeholders discovered achievements such as increased job creation for youths, improved productivity and income of farmers, increased numbers of hectares of land developed, improved rice production and improved market access for farmers.
They identified some of the challenges experienced in the ministry to include “inadequate fund for drawing down water for irrigation in the Lower Anambra-Imo River Basin and farmers slow in adoption of technological system given to them.”
Farmers on their part outlined 13 challenges in accessing the programmes of the ministry to include, “low pace in land development (de-stumping) that made use of tractors in cultivation difficult, low pace in mechanized farming, inadequate number of tractors for hiring, most of the available tractors not functional, untimely distribution of inputs to farmers in agricultural zones; early farmers in riverine areas (Ayamelum, Anambra East and West, Onitsha and Ogbaru L.G.As; start farming season in November and December while upland farmers start farming in March-May and irrigation system in the State currently cannot support all season farming; the major dams in the State should be rehabilitated.”
Other challenges are that “some farmers are experiencing glut in sales of ‘ugu’ vegetable which the state claims to be exporting, cassava and yam produced by some zones are sold at losses, difficulty in accessing loan from Anambra State Agency (ASABA) even after fulfilling the conditions, rice miler’s are not using standard machines and this reduces the quality of rice produced as it does not make the rice completely stones free, feeder roads to farms are very bad making it difficult for farmers to operate as farm inputs and commodities are not easily taken in or brought out from farms.”
They also complained of extension services not being available to guide farmers on the new farming techniques except in few local governments that FADAMA and VCDP operate, just as farmers in the reverine areas hire canoe to transport agricultural commodities at very high cost and lastly that herdsmen violently harass farmers and women in their farms.
At the end of the reviews and discussions, the stakeholders made 10 recommendations to the government for improved implementation and uptake of services by farmers which are that “land development should be improved, irrigation for all season agriculture is needed in all the agricultural zones of the state, distribution of inputs should be timely and in accordance with the farming seasons of the agricultural zones of the state and farmers should be supported to acquire standard rice milling machines to improve quality of their products.”
Dr P.C. Egwui, of All Famers Association (AFAN), thanked the Civil Rights Concern for facilitating the meeting with support from Christian Aid Nigeria.
