The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Southwest and Lagos Chapter, is seeking increased private sector investment in the agriculture sector to boost food security.
The AFAN Southwest and Lagos State chapter, Mr Femi Oke, made the call following a recent intervention by the African US Trade Connect to the association on Thursday in Lagos.
Oke said aside from the provision of agricultural equipment, the group provided financial grants to members.
“The empowerment of which we are enjoying today is from the private sector, we met the company in the United States during a conference we attended.
“The African US Trade Connect believed that all interventions in the Nigerian agriculture sector should not be left with the government alone to carry.
“They are into agricultural machinery, so as the peasants farmers cannot afford it individually, we can get it together as a cluster association.
“The group has been able to give some of our farmers some smoking kilns and same milling machines for processing their produce.
“The farmers have benefited in terms of provision of agricultural equipment and some were given some grants this year. Some farmers got grants up to N50,000 per head,” Oke said.
The AFAN chair also appealed to other private sector stakeholders to take emulate the kind gesture and increase investments in the Nigerian agriculture space.
“And we are using this medium to tell other private sector stakeholders that they should not leave everything to the government, they can do more as a private sector.
“They can intervene across the multi-sectoral value chains in the Nigerian agriculture space.
“From aquaculture to livestock to poultry, there are a lot of private stakeholders who can do depending on their capabilities,” he said.
On his part, the Founder and President of the African US Trade Connect, Mr Wole Osinlaja, reaffirmed the group’s commitment to continuously empower local farmers.
“We successfully assisted about some members of AFAN, who went through rigorous screening to actually prove that they do have the need for intervention.
“It is one thing to want to help, it is another thing for the help to go to the proper people that actually need it.
“So they screened the people and they recommended five people that we were able to successfully empower.
“And as you see there is a 96-year-old man in the midst of them and that has tremendously altered his business. It is nothing big but every little counts.
“Our company which is about 10 years old connects American businesses with African businesses. So, what we actually do is we assist African companies to purchase equipment in America,” Osinlaja said.
He also noted that, “We are in the process of actually donating some moderately used equipment to the farmers so that they can share among themselves, a small scale farmer alone will not be able to afford these agro equipment.
“It would be difficult for one person to actually purchase and own those equipment, but if we can purchase it on their behalf and donate it to the organisation so that when each person needs it then they can lease for free, of course.
“We particularly want to encourage the local farmers not to ever give up. They must continue to strive and move forward in whatever they are doing,” he said.
According to him, the Nigerian government can actually do a lot more than it is doing for local farmers.
“The government can work with organisations such as AFAN that know their members and can actually tailor the needs of each member to what they are going to do as opposed to just generalising.
“That is what we were able to do last year by looking at individual farmers and meeting them at their specific needs,” he said.
