Gov’ts urged to support small scale farmers

The East African Farmer’s Federation (EAFF) has decried the inadequate support by the regional governments to the small scale farmers, warning it could lead to food insecurity.Speaking to The New Times, the federation’s president Philip Kiriro said for region to be food secure governments should come good on their promises of investing more in small scale farming. “The whole problem is lack of political commitment in investing in small scale farmers. Governments need to wake-up and support these farmers for the benefit of the region,” he said.“According to the research we have done on agriculture, there is nothing that is still needed, what we need now is the investments. We need food sovereignty.”He said imported food is having a negative effect on the region’s economy thus affecting the wellbeing of the general population. The specialists believe that unless African countries apply various mechanisms like agricultural intensification to double food production, the continent will continue to suffer from food shortages.Dr Vicky Ruganzu the researcher in Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB) said that they have embarked on assisting the farmers to intensify their and double their food production adding the more support has been provided by government.He also attributed the country’s food security to the increased public investment in the agricultural sector to 10.1 percent, slightly above the Maputo Declaration requirement.During the Maputo Declaration of 2003, African leaders committed themselves to allocate 10 percent of their national budgets to the agricultural sector to ensure food security.Recently, an Action Aid report ranked Rwanda third out of 28 developing countries most prepared to confront the three interlocking global challenges of climate change, resource scarcity and rising and volatile food prices.EAFF is a non-political, non-profit and a democratic apex organization of all Framers of Eastern Africa and its role is to voice legitimate concerns and interests of farmers of the region with the aim of enhancing regional cohesiveness and social-economic status of the farmers.

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Gov’ts urged to support small scale farmers