By Felicia Imohimi
A Development Communications Strategist, Feyikemi Adurogbangba, has urged the Federal Government and other stakeholders to build on the legacy of previous agricultural programmes and desist from implementing projects in silos.
Adurogbangba made the call on Wednesday in Abuja while reacting to farmers’ lamentations over losses recorded in food produce due to price crashes.
In a statement analysing the situation, she expressed concern over what she described as a persistent cycle of challenges confronting farmers despite multiple intervention programmes by government and development partners.
She specifically urged actors across the value chain to build on the foundation of past programmes “instead of working in isolation or restarting efforts with every new initiative”.
According to her, “the crisis confronting farmers is persistent and will continue until risk is no longer borne by those least able to absorb it”.
She emphasised that “in spite of improved practices and infrastructure, many farmers still face harvest-time price crashes, lack access to affordable storage at scale and have limited ability to delay sales or negotiate favourable prices”.
Adurogbangba identified recurring challenges as rising input and transportation costs, volatile markets, harvest-time losses, and farmers’ reliance on price hikes in one crop to offset losses in others.
She frowned at what she described as the persistence of structural weaknesses in the agricultural system, adding that “risk has remained heavily concentrated at the farm level”.
Attributing the worsening situation to intensified macroeconomic pressures on food production, she said:
“In the past three to four years, farmers have faced sharp increases in input costs following subsidy removal, climate variability and flooding, and foreign exchange volatility affecting fertiliser, packaging and logistics.
“These system-wide shocks have moved faster than programme gains could scale, thereby eroding many of the improvements achieved”.
While acknowledging the importance of productivity reforms, she added: “While improving productivity, storage and market information are essential, these alone are not sufficient without coordinated stakeholder action.”
She therefore called for coordinated action at both state and federal levels, a shift from pilot interventions to market-level stabilisation efforts, and deliberate measures to reduce farmers’ exposure to seasonal price crashes. (NAN) www.nannews.ng
Edited by Tosin Kolade
