The federal government is set to implement the National Agricultural Data Management Information System (NADMIS) to strengthen data and information services in the agriculture sector.
Dr Ernest Umakhihe, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, made this known in a statement issued on Wednesday by Mrs Mabel Mbosire, a Senior Information Officer in the ministry.
He disclosed this at the opening of the National Validation of Country Data Set for Third Biennial Review Exercise on the Implementation of Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme on Wednesday in Abuja.
Umakhihe, represented by Mrs Karima Babaginda, Director, Federal Department of Agriculture, said that NADMIS would strengthen the data Information system for policy, planning and tracking of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the agricultural sector.
He said that NADMIS would also act as an instrument for the resuscitation and revitalisation of data and information services at both the federal and state ministries of agriculture in the country.
The permanent secretary said that preparation had reached an advanced stage at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to facilitate the second phase of the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics in Nigeria.
“The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) remains the initiative of the African Heads of States launched and adopted in 2003 in Maputo Mozambique, with a commitment to dedicating 10 per cent of the annual national budget and ensuring six per cent annual growth in the sector, for enhanced public spending, food security and poverty alleviation in the continent’’.
He said that an integral part of the CAADP’s implementation process was a continuous sector performance appraisal through the platforms of a national annual Joint Sector Review and a continental Biennial Review.
Umakhihe also said that Nigeria’s average performances at the inaugural and second biennial review exercises were attributed to issues of data gaps.
“The federal government is steadily dedicating huge resources to development of rural infrastructure, the training of youths to serve as extension agents, the provision of agricultural machinery to expand cultivable land area.
“Also the implementation of the National Livestock Transformation Plan and the acceleration of fisheries and aquaculture production in the country,” he said.
The PS urged stakeholders at the forum to produce a credible and complete data set that would enable Nigeria to be on track in achieving the commitments for implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme.
In his address, Mr Zubairu Abdullahi, the Director, Planning and Policy Coordination Department in the ministry, said Nigeria had since 2003, been part of the conceptualisation, adoption and implementation of the CAADP, to accelerate sector growth and track the entire process through robust data generation for a continental biennial performance review.
He said that to make Nigeria achieve a better result, a synergy was needed between state and non-state actors, by harnessing all available data in the country.
In his remarks, the CAADP Focal Point Officer in Nigeria, Mr Mohammed Ibrahim appealed to the federal government to increase the agricultural sector budgetary provision to meet the 10 per cent of the total annual national budget as recommended and adopted by the Africa Heads of States in Maputo 2003.
He said the federal government should allocate more funds to the sector to address areas of investment that would increase the agricultural GDP to at least six per cent.
Ibrahim further said that stakeholders were expected to support the CAADP team with relevant data based on the indicators for tracking the country’s performance on the implementation of CAADP in Nigeria.
