I lost half of my 50-hectare maize to theft – Rep member

Like many farmers who have lost their farm investment, the Chairman, House Committee on Agricultural Colleges and Institutions, Munir Babba Dan Agundi, has also tasted the bitter pills. Speaking recently at the launch of ARCN Communication Complex, the lawmaker who shared his experience said the stealing of food crops in farms across the country shows […]

Like many farmers who have lost their farm investment, the Chairman, House Committee on Agricultural Colleges and Institutions, Munir Babba Dan Agundi, has also tasted the bitter pills.

Speaking recently at the launch of ARCN Communication Complex, the lawmaker who shared his experience said the stealing of food crops in farms across the country shows there is still hunger in the land.

He said there was lack of synergy between agencies of government driving the president’s agricultural programmes, stressing that budgetary allocation to some critical agencies in the federal ministry of agriculture and rural development cannot produce good results that the president wants.

“I am a practical farmer and not an Abuja farmer. I know what I’m saying, I cultivated 50 hectares of maize in Nasarawa State, and before harvesting, I was expecting to get two and half trailers but already more than one and half trailer have been stolen. That means there is a problem in the land, people are hungry. We need to address these issues so that we can help our country,” he said.

An average trailer carries about 330 bags of maize, amounting to 30 tons while the longest trailer may carry up to 600 bags, amounting to 60 tons at 100kg per bag.

He further said: “I saw the president five days ago and I said this to him that there is still hunger in the country despite the resources put in by the government, it means those handling the mandate of the president are lacking in one way or the other in some of the objectives – specifically lack of synergy. Our agencies CBN, Ministries of Agriculture, Trade and Investment have seen a lot of duplication and responsibility in the budget,” he said.

The legislator said the committee has suggested that the budget was a very important instrument to change the face of things.

“I just want to give one or two examples for you to understand what I’m saying. This year’s budget of the Ministry of Agriculture and other agencies run around N96 billion and some of the institutions under the federal ministry of agriculture have more money than others. You can see an institution with one mandate given 10 times more than the one with 9 mandates and when we want to do our work to check these things, it results to what they call padding. So, I think the ministry and committees in the House and Senate should do everything possible to change this scenario.

“We went to Iran and saw the same agency like the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI), in Vom, which were set up at the same time, but now they are producing both human and animal vaccines and they are exporting to all parts of the world. This agency (NVRI)’s budget is just around N900 million and there are some agencies that are not near important in terms of their activities with this agency having more budget. So, there are a lot of issues that we need to tell the president to sit down with the Senate, reps and minister to address,” he emphasized.