SENATOR ODUAH’S BILL ON: NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMME COORDINATING AGENCY (NAPCA) DISSECTED

Our indefatigable Senator Stella Oduah sponsored Agricultural Bill designed to create a National Agency that will coordinate, regulate and monitor Agricultural activities with a view to bringing innovations into the industry. The Bill is still undergoing legislative processes.

Agriculture has always remained the major activities of our people especially in the rural areas. Hitherto before the discovery of oil and its economic revolution, our people were major producers and exporters of agricultural products like palm Oil, Groundnut, Cocoa etc, and it accounted for the greater percentage of our GDP,  but when we discovered oil, Agriculture was abandoned. Regardless, that has not diminished the contributions of Agriculture towards our economy.

According to World Bank, Agriculture contributed 75% of non oil revenues, 34% of labour force and 24% of our GDP in 2011. The report stated that Agriculture has the potentials to unlock our economy by creating jobs if the gaps within the chain are abridged to improve productivity, quality and delivery to markets. 

The sector has suffered serious abandonment over the years without any innovations to help develop it with the pace of 21^st century dynamism all over the world. Many countries in the world today earn a reasonable amount of their GDP from Agriculture..

Countries  like Malaysia that is widely speculated though yet to be substantiated that they came to buy seedlings of Agricultural products from our country many years ago, are now world renown producers and exporters of cassava products they got from us. They rely heavily on agriculture to grow their GDP every year. Ironically though, we also now rely on them to import these Agricultural products in some cases to meet our local demand.

Agriculture is key to every economy especially a developing economy likes ours where the biggest ratio of the population is still living below poverty margin as millions barely see a meal in  day let alone three basic square meals.

This makes it imperative to optimize development and innovation in agricultural to help alleviate poverty and also absorb the rising unemployment challenges that beset us as a nation. 

Lack of mechanization and modern method of agric farming, has consistently made that sector unattractive to the youths. Many people find it difficult navigating into that sector to embrace it as an avenue to build their future due to the fact that Agriculture in this part of the world is viewed as dirty job for the old and rural dwellers. And the biggest fear is that the income in the business will not be sustainable. But these fears are allayed and overtaken by the success and growth achieved by civilized nations that embraced innovation and merchanization in that sector. 

Globalization has made it easy for people to see that agriculture in many parts of the world is a big business with billions of dollars generated from that yearly. Infact, many Billionaires in the world today have traced part of their wealth to investment in agriculture.

Interestingly, this administration has made backward integration to agriculture one of the mainstay and the cardinal points of the administration.

To buttress government’s seriousness, there has been a lot of credit incentives subsidized by Govt through many agencies like CBN, Bank of Industry BO1, etc to assist people who are serious and ready to invest in agriculture secure tractors and other mechanised tools necessary to bolster their investment in that sector.

Our people of Anambra North in particular are major famers that are into fishing, staple food like yam, rice farming etc, hence the need for this bill to help and assist rural farmers turn their subsistence farming to agribusiness that will earn them millions yearly to stimulate the interest of the youths.

This bill comes to streamline the vision for that sector and commit the government to get directly involved to grow the sector and vis a vis alleviate poverty while also contributing to reduction of unemployment especially among our youths.

The Bill will spearheard innovation in the sector, making agriculture a viable sector of our economy that will stimulate employment and growth.

Our visionary Senator Stella Oduah foresaw all these hence she sponsored this bill for the interest of our people whose future are anchored on agriculture.

When a people elect an impact driven leader who understands the challenges and the plight of her people, the result is people-driven programs and initiatives in this case in form of bills and motions that will impact their lives positively at the grassroots level.

#IStandWithStellaOduah

 Anayo Ekeanya (MBA, BSc, DAIT) writes from Abuja

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