Agricultural transformation tops Atiku’s agenda for Nigeria – Baraka Sani

Director Support Groups, PDP presidential campaign management council (PCMC), Hajia Baraka Sani has said agriculture transformation is among the five major developmental agenda of the party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

Baraka Sani stated this on Sunday at the 1st Kano State all agricultural value chain and all commodities conference for small holders farmers, in the state, tagged ”The Agricultural Sector Plan: A presentation of Atiku Abubakar Covenant With Nigerians.”

She said Atiku’s aim of optimizing the growth potential of the real sectors of the economy is to promote diversification and linkages with agriculture, solid minerals, manufacturing, micro, medium and small enterprises with inter sectoral linkages for resilience and sustainability.

“What prevails today is a slow growing, low productivity and subsistent agricultural sector operating side by side an underperforming manufacturing sector, low in productivity and a largely informal MSME sector, this can definitely not be an option for Nigeria that hopes to grow into a strong and resilient economy,” Baraka said.

“Therefore we must restructure, diversify and strengthen the productive base of economy, there is also the need for proffer linkages between the oil sector and the non-oil sector ensuring value addition to all domestic products including crude oil and crops.”

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“This the first time a presidential candidate is telling Nigerians not only what of his policies but the how and when. In pursuit of the policy diversification, Atiku’s plan is to support commercially driven, technology proficient agriculture which ensures food security and interfaces with the manufacturing sector for the supply of raw materials.”

She added that if the PDP residential candidate wins the election, he will promote all year round food production through expansion of irrigation facilities, in order to mitigate climate change effect and extend the planting seasons to an all year round season.

“Atiku will improve farming through modernization and mechanization of small scale agriculture to international levels, by asking the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to develop and disseminate localized guidance on the best fertilizer, feed, shock etc. Coordinating bulk purchase of feed, stock and fertilizer and distribution throughout the country.”

On his part, the guest speaker, Prof. Muhammad Sanusi Gaya in his paper presentation title” Foundation Seed, a panacea to sustainable agriculture” said using old seed by farmers in Nigeria is the reason why the agricultural sector is not developing.

“We see in other countries farmers are getting 10 tons of the same crops we are growing here, while we are only getting 200kg, a farmer elsewhere is getting 20 litters of milk from cow.”

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“If we really want to improve agriculture, definitely we should move away from 200kg per head that farmers are getting on their fields, or the 2 litters of milk a cattle can give in our community.”

“The seeds we use are old and outdated, the genetic potential is becoming low.”

“One of two ways of changing seeds is farmer to farmer seeds diffusion, now we have commodity value chain, research institute should work directly with some farmers, take their produce to these farmers, so that they can grow their own seed, if they do that I’m sure that will improve our agriculture.”