The Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) has all the potential of transforming the agriculture sector given the federal and state governments’ commitment to the success of the programme.

Mr. Samuel Dung, the Programme Manager, Plateau Agricultural Development Programme (PADP) said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos. Dung said; “There is no doubt that the implementation of the ATA was faced with many challenges in the pilot year.

“These challenges are being reviewed with the aim of improving the implementation in 2013 and beyond so that farmers can redeem their fertiliser and other inputs promptly.”

He identified the challenges to include skepticism, leading to some degree of resistance to the new fertiliser distribution mechanism through an electronic system known as ‘E-wallet’.

He explained that the system, which was part of the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme, suffered some setbacks. They included the inability of some designated agro-dealers to supply fertiliser due to their inability to access credit from commercial banks and the fact that some farmers could not afford mobile phones and network problems, among others.

“Agro-dealers’ inability to provide farmers with fertiliser under the GES on time was yet another problem, as they could not easily access credit facility from commercial banks to supply the fertiliser as envisaged. You will recall that Plateau flagged off the sale of fertiliser in June 2012, but farmers only started getting the product in late August 2012 when farming season was almost over.

“Another setback suffered by the ATA was flooding that ravaged parts of the state, especially in the Southern Senatorial zone that destroyed crops, killed thousands of livestock, damaged farmlands, roads and bridges.”

The programme manager, however, expressed optimism that the ATA would engender “drastic” improvements in agricultural practice by repositioning the sector and the country in general. One of the objectives of the ATA is to stimulate agricultural growth, value addition and job creation.

“This is to be achieved through the Value Chain initiative set up for various crops to proffer comprehensive remedies and address constraints from production to processing, storage and marketing.  It is estimated that from rice, cassava, sorghum and cotton value chains alone, 3.5 million jobs will be created,” Dung said.