The federal government has for many years injected a lot money into several agricultural policies and programmes with the aim to put the country on the path of sustainable food security and nutrition.
Despite most of these policies and programmes, hunger and malnutrition continue to persist among growing population, even as the global community head towards the end of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Although there are factors arising from climate change and insecurity which pose serious threat to global food security including Nigeria, however, inconsistent implementation of government agricultural policies and long neglect of others have been identified by experts as some of the key challenges hampering the turnaround of the sector.
As federal government continue to intensify efforts at achieving food security agenda, some post-independent, enabling consistence agricultural policy implementation becomes imperative.
Historically, some of the laudable post independent Nigeria agricultural policies such as ; National Accelerated Food Production Project (NAFPP, 1972), River Basin Development Authority (RBDA, 1973), Agricultural Development Project (ADP, 1975), Operation Feed the Nation (OFN, 1976), The Green Revolution Program (1980); Accelerated Development Area Project (ADAP, 1982), Multi-state Agricultural Development Project (MSAP, 1986) among others indicated a shortfall between expectations and the results.
Though some of these policies are no longer in existence but the federal government can take a cue from their short comings and develop a right tract for robust implementation of its current agricultural programmes to meet their objectives even after the end of a particular administration.
It’s against this backdrop that the federal ministry of agriculture and rural development recently convened meeting of Community of Practice (CoP) with state commissioners of agriculture to build a common platform for the planning, streamlining and implementation of agricultural policies and programmes across the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.
Community of practice (CoP) which entails grouping of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or an interest in a topic and who come together to fulfill both individual and group goals is needed for a collaborative knowledge sharing in agricultural practices.
In many cases, communities of practice often focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance a domain of professional practice and interaction on an ongoing basis is also an important part of this.
This can often be achieved here many communities of practice rely on face-to-face meetings as well as web-based collaborative environments to communicate, connect and conduct community activities.
During the COP inaugural meeting in Abuja, minister of state for agriculture and rural development, Hon Mustapha Baba Shehuri said the Community of Practice will be vested with the oversight responsibility to ensuring effective policy implementation in the agricultural sector in line with policy best practices.
Even though the National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD) is still the highest policy making body for agriculture and rural development in the country; however, Shehuri noted that the absence of a definitive follow-up of decisions taken during the yearly NCARD meeting contributes to policy inconsistency and perennial policy failure in the sector.
As a result of this, he said that there was a need for a complementary body to support, effective interaction to engender close monitoring of agricultural policy process as decided by NCARD, adding that such structure have continued to influence improvements in the governance structure in Nigeria and improve the federal and states relationship to foster common agendas.
“This concept is not new as similar structures exist in other federal ministries, i.e the CoP for state honourable commissioners/heads of budget and planning agencies established by the federal ministry of finance, budget and national planning. Such structure have continued to influence improvements in the governance structure in Nigeria and improve the federal and states relationship to foster common agendas.
Let me reiterate that the present administration is committed to the diversification of the nation’s economy and has made the development of the agricultural sector a top priority despite global challenges, the sector at present is witnessing an unprecedented and consistent growth following its revival and gradual transformation since 2015.
“For us to sustain the achievement in agricultural sector, it requires strong knowledge bases that should be constantly updated. It further requires expediently, that we must all work together to develop innovative ways for solving different problems facing agricultural sector to achieve a common goal,” he said.
Although the inauguration of CoP in the ministry is coming less than a year to 2023 general elections and eventual end of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration but the ministry hope that it will provide the needed insight for turning the table around to assess progress and policy thrusts to ensure that agriculture continues to be topmost priority for self-sufficiency and exportation drive.
Experts are of the view that effective implementation of COP in agriculture can help achieve good agricultural practices and translate into increase access to healthy foods like fruits and vegetables, especially in low-income areas with limited access otherwise. It also provides opportunities for public health programming to improve nutritional knowledge and attitudes.
According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), COP are important to a sustainable food security especially to develop, capture, curate and share knowledge, especially by building on the collective knowledge of members.
The key to a successful CoP especially in Nigeria remains among others to engaged, active group of leaders who are willing to learn from one another and share that collective knowledge in a final resource or lesson for innovation and the leaders to share through technical assistance.
For farmers, participation in a CoP means the individual has made a commitment to the group and to the focus of the practice and over a set period of time, members engage in a process of teaching and learning to either reaching a conclusion or deciding on the next steps on certain agricultural practices.
