Senate Advances Barau’s Bill to Modernise Nigeria’s Agricultural Sector

BASHIR MAYERE, Abuja

The Senate has passed for second reading a bill seeking to provide a comprehensive legal framework for the transformation and modernisation of agriculture in Nigeria.

The bill also seeks to promote food security, agricultural productivity, mechanisation, irrigation, agricultural financing, agro-industrialisation, rural development and climate-resilient farming, as well as other related matters.

The Deputy Senate President, Senator Barau Jibrin, who sponsored the bill, said agriculture, which has been the mainstay of the country’s economy, was no longer moving in the right direction.

He argued that during the First and Second Republics, Nigeria was well-fed and produced agricultural commodities that drove the economy. Factories were also operating across the country, with textile companies in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano and Kaduna, alongside several processing industries.
He added that the country was doing well at the time, with people and resources properly managed and things moving in the right direction.

According to him, successive governments attempted to sustain agricultural programmes, but the absence of a legal framework may have contributed to the collapse of the sector.

“There wasn’t any legal framework to support that government program at that time, then when we got into the 90s, everything got scattered in terms of agricultural production. And as we speak, industries are no more functioning, go to Sharada area in Kano, Kaduna now nothing is going on in terms of industrial activities,” he said.

Senator Barau further explained that the present administration was making efforts to introduce reforms, stressing that the responsibility of transforming the country should not be left entirely to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

He said there was a need to complement the President’s efforts, hence the introduction of the bill to holistically revolutionise Nigeria’s agricultural sector.

Supporting the bill, Senator Muhammad Tahir Monguno said it essentially seeks to adopt a holistic approach to addressing agricultural challenges rather than the segmented approach currently in place.

He maintained that agriculture remains an important sector that the country cannot afford to relegate to the background.

Also contributing to the debate, Senator Babangida Hussain said that, as a farmer since 1976, when the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme was launched, Nigeria had yet to establish a sustainable financing plan for agriculture.

He noted that this was one of the areas the bill seeks to harmonise and bring under one umbrella.

“The advance in agriculture is such that some countries are even producing colored cotton now instead of dyeing cotton for our fabric.

“If you go to Chile, they have a university of cotton in Chile today. They produce colored cotton.

“So I think what the bill is seeking to do is to bring all of these measures, all of these policies and programs under one umbrella,” he said.

Senator Babangida further emphasised that properly disarticulating the agricultural value chain and ensuring effective linkages among its various sectors would help achieve the objectives of the proposed legislation.