The Nation Newspaper

Category: Agriculture

  • 15,000 farmers get N375m BoA loan

    15,000 farmers get N375m BoA loan

    No  fewer than 15,000 cassava  farmers have benefited from t  the N375 million loan by the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) to boost cassava production in Adamawa State.

    Chairman, Borno Cassava Farmers Cooperative Union (BCFCU), Alhaji Lawal Umara,  made this known in Maiduguri.

    He said the farmers who received N250,000 each were drawn from the 27 local government areas.

    He said the initiative was part of the government’s effort to enhance cassava production for local consumption and export.

    He said the initiative would go  help ensure food security in the state and the country.

    Umara said cassava farmers in the state also received about 10,000 bundles of cassava seedlings under the Federal Government’s Agricultural Enhancement Programme to enable them improve on their yields.

    He said the association also secured 100 hectares of farm in each of the 27 local government areas for cassava farmers.

    “Some of our members were also empowered to produce different varieties of cassava.

    “Plans are also underway to train 2,700 women farmers who lost their farmlands due to the activities of insurgents in some local government areas.

    “The women would be trained on how to make biscuits, bread, cakes, doughnuts, pies, rolls and chin-chin, among items,’’ he said.

  • ‘Accurate weather predictions boom to private firms’

    Demand for accurate weather predictions by  farmers could  enable  private forecasting  firms  to enter the industry, the President, Lagos  State Apex Fadama Community Association, Alhaji Mufutau Abiodun Oyelekan,  has said.

    According to him, there is increased demand for agro-meteorological information and services from the farmers.

    This, he noted,  imposes the need to reduce the role of  agro-meteorological stations, which should not only be “centres for collecting data and information”, but also something like a local referral and consultation centre.

    He said an improved weather  service  would result into increases in food and income.

    Such service, he added, would  help farmers not only in increasing  their production but also reducing their losses due to changing weather patterns and other problems.

    Despite advances made in weather forecasting, he maintained that the real value is in terms of offering the right advice at right time to the farmers, noting that this is lacking.

    Oyelekan said farmers need      agro-meteorological services to   meet essential needs in agro-meteorological information in both operational and climatological, adding that  the  economy is  open  to new and promising technologies and techniques that acommodate  microclimate relationships and  crop development models.

    At the moment, he noted, agro meteorological services are not rich enough to attract the attention  of farmers, adding that the sector needs  more  accurate agro-meteorological information, to think and take  decisions.

    Experts said the data provided by the national weather service is more generic, and that this  has  reduced the dependency on the government weather service provider.

    According to him, there was a need to create an alternative, although one cannot rule out the forecasts by the National Meteorological Service.

    He said the companies will  provide weather services for corporate, industrial, media and consumer markets, including key sectors, such as transport, marine and energy.

    According to him, such  companies  will be permitted to sell data to insurance firms and those in the private sector.

    To succeed,  he  said,  such  firms  would establish  highest density of private weather stations, consisting of proprietary weather stations across the country and  opening up opportunities for developing high resolution forecasting technologies.

  • Investors’ interest in sugar will revitalise sector, says researcher

    Foreign investors’ interest in establishing sugar plantations  in the country  will  create  jobs, the Director, Sugar Research Institute, Ilorin, Prof Gbadebo Olaoye, has said.

    He said sugar plantations and an ethanol processing plants  will grow the economy.

    He said the sector would witness growth in the next few years with projects planned for various parts of the country.

    Experts said the industry is  growing following the decision of four key players to pump $2.570 billion into the industry.This development follows on sharp increases in demand to two million metric tonnes (MT) as at last year, from 1.5 million MT the previous year, according to the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC).

    Dangote Sugar is coming up with  $2 billion investments in six states  through its recently acquired Savannah Sugar Plc in Numan, Adamawa State, Northeast. Its target is 1.5 million MT and expansion from  6,500 hectares (ha) to 21,000 ha to produce 100,000 tonnes of sugar yearly by 2018.

    HoneyGold Group is to invest $300million on two sites in Adamawa State, with the target of  200,000 tonnes of sugar yearly, while Crystal Sugar Mills is  investing $30 million to expand its operations to  60,000 tonnes per year from its acquired 1,500 TCD sugar plant at Hadejia, Jigawa State.

    ‘’Confluence Sugar Company is investing $240 million in Kogi State to produce 200,000 tonnes sugar per year on about 37,000 ha of land at Ibaji,” LatifBusari, executive secretary, NSDC, said in Abuja.

    Similarly, the NSDC said total national sugar demand rose to two million MT by the end of last year, from 1.5 million tonnes in 2012; while refining capacity utilisation rose to 75 per cent, from 60 per cent in the same period. Raw sugar imports dropped to 800,000 MT from 1.4 million MT.

    Also, Dangote Group of Companies  said it has  concluded plans to create 160,000 jobs through agriculture.

    Technical Adviser to the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote,  Joseph Makoju, made this known  when he led a delegation of the company to brief Governor Idris Wada on plans to establish a sugar factory in Kogi State.

    He said Kogi is one of the seven states, where the company hopes to establish sugar factories. He added that construction on the proposed company would take off by November.

    He said the company’s investment in agriculture is aimed at creating jobs and wealth as well as assist in implementing the Transformation Agenda of the federal and state governments.

    Responding, Governor Wada assured the Dangote Group of support, adding that land has been acquired for the project.

  • Transformation Agenda’ll boost agric

    The Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) will create opportunities for home grown food manufacturing, the Deputy Director, Department of General Administration, Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Dr Ademola Adeyemo, has said.

    According to him, the sector  has a competitive labour cost base to supply to  food  manufacturing  so long as it is done in areas where the advantages can be enjoyed.

    He said thriving crops, fruits and vegetables sector is an enabling  food  processing to spend money on the much-needed capital infrastructure, which is expected to lead to high demand for food processing  products.

    He said the sector will  meet major equipment requirements by having a proven, capable and reliable manufacturing capacity at  its disposal.

    Agribusiness, he said, is a high-tech commercial sector, which includes the production, processing, distribution and marketing of agricultural products and the manufacture of farm machinery, equipment and supplies.

    In the next few years, he  said, the sector would see growth in corporate agriculture and larger operations requiring skilled employees, including farm managers, agronomists and veterinarians and managers in human resources, finance and communications.

    He  said there is a  booming demand from export markets and a growing interest in food provenance and safety.

  • How to achieve alternative food security

    How to achieve alternative food security

    The cost of industrial agriculture and junk food has become high necessitating a global search for sustainable alternatives to achieving food security. Experts see agro-ecological approach, which provides socio-economic and environmental benefits that can be scaled up to empower smallholder farming communities, as a viable option to achieving food security. DANIEL ESSIET reports.

    Rising food prices and increasing climate instability have sparked political changes around the world and put agriculture on international spotlight. What kind of agriculture is best suited to respond to those challenges has also become a global subject of discussion.

    Much of the policy debate on food security, climate change and agriculture assumes that industrial agriculture and related bio-technology are the only options for feeding a growing global population. Agribusiness and agrochemical companies have created and supported this image through aggressive advertising, lobbying and support for research institutions.

    Experts see the agro-ecological farming systems as one solution. Agro-ecological farming is defined as the application of ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agro ecosystems.

    It starts from the interplay between the natural environment and agriculture, building on local priorities and knowledge about site-specific conditions.

    Riding on this momentum, global farmers’ movements are promoting agro ecology to advance food sovereignty, which establishes each nation’s right to democratically determine its own path to ensure stable food supplies for its people under conditions that “feed the world while cooling the planet”.

    Experts are also of the opinion that agro- ecological agricultural production will lower the use of imported inputs as well as production costs.

    A food expert, Prof Tola Atinmo, said climate change and industrial  agriculture  require urgent attention, and investment in a model of agriculture that is truly sustainable.

    According  to him, farming has to be  practised  in a  way  that  it contribute to people’s well-being by providing them with sufficient food and other goods and services in ways that are economically efficient, profitable, socially responsible, culturally acceptable and environmentally sound.

    He said the  use of pesticides as practised in the developing world, poses significant risks to human health and to biodiversity, which is an important source of food and livelihoods for many of the poorest people.

    Further loss of genetic diversity in plant crops and animal breeds, he  noted,  is dangerous, because it makes food supply more vulnerable to outbreaks of pests and diseases and to loss of capacity to adapt to changing climatic conditions.

    For many small-scale farmers, the purchase of manufactured fertilisers and pesticides is constrained by the high costs of these relative to output prices, or simply by their unavailability. Also, the farmers who buy pesticides would still be at risk because the information on how to use them properly is simply not available.

    As an approach, he said agro-ecology aims to make agriculture economically, ecologically, and socially more sustainable.

    This, however, requires finding biological ways to reduce the need for pesticides. At the end, it produces positive impacts in terms of human health, reduced emissions, and greater protection of bio-diversity.

    With agro-ecological practices that diversify agricultural systems, invasive species will spread at slower rates, establish less effectively and have more limited effects on yield and quality.

    System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is an example of agro-ecology in action.

    It is an agro-ecological approach that originally focused on better husbandry of hand-planted rice crops and has since been adapted for other staples. Key components of SRI include starting with fewer, younger, widely spaced seedlings, grown in mostly aerobic soils instead of constantly flooded fields. The SRI, which is also called the System of Crop Intensification (SCI) has had great success among small farmers in many countries around the world.

    SRI allows farmers to increase their rice production through a shift in the management of plant, water, soil and nutrients toward a more favorable environment for the growth of rice plants. Farmers utilising SRI techniques over the past ten years have experienced an increase in rice yields from 30 to 150 per cent, depending on the farmers’ levels of SRI implementation and productivity, and on natural conditions for rice farming. They are also are able to reduce the amount of seeds they use by 50 to 70 per cent, and can lessen or end their dependence on chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

    The Director, Research Operations Department, National Cereals Research Institute(NCRI), Badeggi, Niger State, Dr  Myimaorga Emmanuel Abo,  said  the use  of  SCI has shown very positive results in  some  part of the North as  the use of alternative management practices for a number of other crops.

    For this reason, the principles that make up a SCI are now spreading through the country for a range of crops. With wider spaces between rows and plants, SCI is becoming the ‘normal way of growing more staples in the North.

    If he  has its way, the yield of different varieties of rice  grown using this technique will increase more in the next two years or so in many areas of the country.

    Right now, the SRI method is being used by only a handful of farmers.  But these few farmers are amazed by the results they are getting.  NCRI’s work is  unique in the region as it focuses on empowering people within the communities.

    The institute has developed a participatory extension mechanism through local community based organisations, where people actively participate in agricultural development. Prior to SRI, the mainstream approach to rice intensification focused on the promotion and proper use of fertiliser, safe use of pesticides or the use of pesticides as a last resort, the use of improved seeds, and the promotion of integrated pest management (IPM).

    The approach convinced farmers and other stakeholders that rice productivity could be increased quickly, reliably and profitably using these techniques. High external input with corresponding high outputs were widely accepted as the mainstream strategy for rice intensification.

    The introduction of SRI gives small-scale farmers an alternative solution to the high cost of external input under the earlier approach.

    According to him, SRI allows farmers to increase their rice productivity at a lower external input cost, and to maintain ownership of local seeds, even as the system enhances soil fertility.

    Abo said  SRI is beneficial to farmers with small landholdings who practice rain-fed agriculture. It promotes the use of local seeds and the management of available water resources more efficiently and productively. As farmers gradually increase seed selection from their own familiar and valued seeds, they can achieve higher yields, thus strengthening their ownership of such seeds.

    Last year, the World Bank Senior Operations Specialist and Task Team Leader of the project, Dr. Lucas Akapa, said at the opening ceremony of the Eighth World Bank Project Implementation Mission to Kano State  said the project in Kano has promoted Draught Tolerant Maize (DTM) in the traditionally non-maize growing areas using and adoption of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) among rice farmers resulting to average yield increase from 2.7 metric tonnes to 3.6 metric tonnes per hectare.

    Trials with the SRI were undertaken at the SabonGari station of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria as far as 2006-07, while farmer training and trials were done in Ondo State about the same period.

    In 2010, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) Green Sahel-RDI began promoting SRI in Jigawa State after sending participants to an SRI event sponsored the USAID-funded IICEM/E-ATPExpanded Agribusiness Trade Promotion project in Mali in 2010.

    In July 2011, Green Sahel Agricultural and Rural Development Institute (GSARDI) conducted a training programme on SRI and organic methods with support from E-ATP project in Jigawa State. According to a 2012 USAID PowerPoint, farmers trained by the E-ATP SRI events in Nigeria have gotten yields up to 10 tons/ha. Subsequent trials are ongoing.

    This year, SRI Initiative assisted by the West Africa Agriculture Productivity Programme (WAAPP), was launched in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, aimed at increasing farmers’rice yields in Nigeria.

    The initiative is to make agriculture more productive and sustainable and to promote innovations in technologies, institutions, processes, organisations and markets.

    WAAPP is a World Bank-assisted programme under the auspices of the member countries of the Economic Communities of West African States (ECOWAS). The objective of the project is to improve agricultural productivity in the ECOWAS countries.

    The recommended SRI practices include: raised unflooded seedbeds; selecting only good seeds for sowing in the nursery and use of strong seedlings from the nursery for transplanting; using younger seedlings (preferably 8–15 days for the short-term variety, and 8–20 days for medium- or long-term variety) transplanted immediately after uprooting; fewer seedlings and preferably just one seedling per hill; shallow and careful transplanting; wider spacing between plants, preferably transplanting in a square pattern to expose plants more to the sun and air and to facilitate weeding; keeping minimum water levels in the field when transplanting and during the vegetative stage of rice growth; early and frequent weeding (to aerate the soil as well as to remove weeds); and application of compost, as much as possible. Some of the above-mentioned practices go against generally-accepted practices. For example, rice farmers are used to transplanting older seedlings (more than one month old), many seedlings per clump (more than five), placing the roots in very deeply when transplanting, and waiting for the field to be flooded with water before transplanting.

  • Tackling the cost of tractor hiring

    Tackling the cost of tractor hiring

    The Federal Government has  set up  programmes to reduce chronic hunger and poverty in the country.  One of the initiatives is the mechanisation scheme which  offers tractors to farmers. The private sector is getting involved. The result is that  the initiative allows farmers to increase production ,improve quality  and live better.   Daniel Essiet reports.

    Cocoa  farming  appeals to  farmers in the Southwest, Southeast and Southsouth parts of the country. It is a crop that offers extra earnings for growers and encourages  plantain cultivation. Its planting, control, harvesting and primary processing have created employment for men, women and landless labourers. Its industrial processing provides even more jobs.

    But to achieve success in cocoa farming requires between 10 and 20 hectares of land or more. That is why most cocoa farms are   in the hands of larger scale commercial farmers or a multitude of smallholders.  Farmers see farm size as a key determinant of productivity.  With this, they labour to obtain levels of productivity per unit area of land.

    While high crop productivity is associated with intensive use of farm inputs, yields can be increased through better land management.                  Farmers have also discovered that using farm machinery can facilitate weed and pest control too.

    This development is therefore giving boost to the national campaign to promote the use of tractors and farm machinery.

    The Secretary, Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN), Mr.Alagbada Adebola, told The Nation  that one of the major inhibitions to profitability is the age-old cocoa plantation practice, stressing that  efficient machinery is key to successful farming in the challenging environment.

    As a result, he said farmers are looking at a ways to access machines and deploy tools and modern inputs in increasing productivity.

    According to him, being well-equipped makes the business more efficient, with the latest kits offering greater output and economy cutting expensive downtime and repair costs.

    On the average, tractor service charges N8,000 a day  to clear a farmland. This will be a  loss for a farmer with less than four hectares. At the end of the day,it pays the large scale farmer paying that amount to clear six to nine hectares.

    To be profitable, Adebola said the more areas covered, the more attractive hire becomes.

    He  said it is cost-effective if one uses  one tractor to service combined 10 hectares or more,  adding  that  the smaller the farmland the more the losses incured.

    One benefit of tractors on the farm, he explained, is time use, or how much time farmers  spend on productive tasks.

    The Managing Director, Origin Automobile, Mr Samuel Johnson,   said sustainable agricultural intensification is still one of the major issues to meeting  the growing demand for food and making self-sufficiency.

    The challenge, he noted, however, remains in the development of pragmatic approaches and incentives that increase food production and profits and build the base towards sustainability in the near future.

    According to him, increased production and productivity stabilisation in all areas of agriculture are the main conduits for sustained income generation and food security.

    He explained that  increased use of  tractors would  lead to a rise in farm incomes and that  his organisation  was working  on a national tractorisation programme that would lead the country towards  achieving greater tonnes in  production.

    The  innovative tractor scheme is  designed to help private operators own tractors and increase farmers’ access to tractor services.

    The current market for tractors is dominated by the government, whose efforts to meet farmers’ demand for tractor services have largely failed.

    This scheme is an opportunity to prove that the private sector can really take responsibility for making the economy work without everybody having to sit back and wait for the government to do it right, he said.

    Part of the strategy is to work  with state and local governments, recruiting agricultural engineers  who  will  be offered tractors under his agric mechanisation entrepreneurs’ scheme.

    He said  agric engineers within a local government area will be given tractors to service  farmers.

    They are expected to repay the cost  of the  tractor within a certain period.

    Along the line, the company is in discussions with large farming enterprises about how they finance their tractors.

    The company would help a group of farmers who  can  raise the cost of buying  one tractor to do rather than hire it.

    In case of hire purchase, he said farmers would be given up to three years to repay.

    He explained also that the tractors on offer are of high quality.

    According to him, Origin Automobile would train farmers, service the tractors, and support them  to enhance as well as sustain the programme.

    As farmers’ incomes go up, Samuel said they would be able  to invest in better tractors.

    With small scale farmers in the majority, the uptake of smaller horsepower tractors is expected to increase in the coming years.

    For many small and marginal farmers, owning few acres of land, Origin Automobile   arranges them working through cooperatives to buy one tractor.

    Because of the high level of investment required to purchase a combine harvester, a machine used for just a few weeks, seems at odds with modern business thinking.

    According to him, farmers like the idea of short-term rental for a season, or a matter of months or weeks. He sees rental of tractors appealing to more businesses for its adaptability, particularly as acreages increase. Generally, hiring is also available for a single season, although this is not offered on new machines. And it comes with all the benefits of a purchase, including full operator training. The deal includes breakdown cover, with a replacement machine in the worst-case scenario.

    He expects farmers to shift from labour-intensive to capital-intensive methods of farming, which means buying tractors rather than hiring labourers.

    He said the strategy to open up vast native grasslands and establish native pasture for livestock grazing  requires  extensive use of machines and tractors.

    He said a small group of farmers  can combine resources to install a pipe and sprinkler to access water from the hills to irrigate their crops, saving countless difficult treks to bring the water to their fields by hand. Mulching is another example of a simple agricultural best practice that conserves water and reduces the number of times a crop needed to be irrigated.

    For farmers in particular, these technologies have benefits extending beyond increased productivity and income; when their labour burden is reduced, farmers have more time which in turn can help ensure the benefits of improved agriculture are shared more equally among women and men.

    The National President, Federation of Agricultural Commodity Associations of Nigeria (FACAN), Dr Victor Inyama, said the issue of increasing farm productivity  is very important.

    He identified lack of support to improve agric productivity and bringing innovation into the sector as one of the many factors responsible for youths’ poor participation in agriculture.

    Inyama stressed the need for government to take adequate steps to address infrastructural decay or lack of it completely in the rural areas including building farm settlements in rural communities to attract the youth and women who have the energy and time to sustain the sector.

    However, government  is  beginning to respond to the need  to improve mechanisation.

    To this end, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture  released N3.6 billion as an intervention scheme towards financing the establishment of the Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprise meant to encourage the poor to venture into mechanisation.

    The funds in the first phase will make available 400 units of tractors, 500 power tillers, and various harvest and post-harvest equipment to set up 80 centres, while Phase II will achieve similar results. Phase III will acquire 250 tractors through the partnership programme, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina said.

    He spoke through his representative,  the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Ibukun Odusote, at an interactive session on mechanisation intervention programme.

  • Provide incentives for firms to return, expert urges

    The Federal Government has been urged to revamp the environment to entice food companies that have set up manufacturing operations outside the country and elsewhere to return home.

    The Chairman, Southsouth, Southeast Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Hyke Ochia, said without a strong food manufacturing sector, the country will not create the jobs.

    He called  for a pro-domestic manufacturing  policy environment  which  should  include generous incentives and subsidies for companies to return production to the country.

    He said this will generate jobs and activate the local economy by providing companies with corporate and income tax cuts on earnings generated by their re-established domestic operations, and subsidies for the purchase of land or rent. There should also be additional subsidies for equipment purchase and favorable export guarantees.

    He said there should be provision allowing companies that reshore to move into free economic zones, “creating exclusive industrial complexes, giving priority when moving in to national general industrial complexes.”

    Ochia said Nigeria must increase its share of food manufacturing. The reason: a stronger food manufacturing sector will enable “growth and economic recovery”.

    He  said Nigeria  needs new food industrial investment at a time when lack of confidence, market uncertainty, financial problems and skills shortages are holding it back.

    According to him, the government needs to give a signal for people to understand that manufacturing matters and reverse the trend of a declining share of industry in the economy because industry is really key for competitiveness and growth.

    With dismal performance recorded so far,  he advised  the government to  work  on a new legislation aimed at improving manufacturing and reducing the nation’s  trade deficit.

     

  • ‘Overuse of antibiotics in livestock endangers lives’

    THE overuse of antibiotics in livestock  is putting lives at risk, Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ilorin,Ilorin, Prof Abiodun Adeloye, has warned.

    He urged farmers to exercise restraint in giving antibiotics to cattle, poultry, hogs and other animals to boost their growth, citing concern that drugs overuse endanger human lives.

    Adeloye said antibiotics should be used only to protect  animals and not to help them grow or improve their digestion.

    He  warned that while the principle linking antibiotic resistance and non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics was widely accepted, antibiotics are still routinely added in massive quantities to animal feed, not to treat disease but to promote faster growth.

    He said cases  have shown that the use of antibiotics in livestock leads to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can be—and has been—transferred from animals to humans through direct contact, environmental exposure, consumption and handling of contaminated meat and poultry products.

    Adeloye  called on the government to work together with the private sector to regulate unnecessary use of antibiotics in animal agriculture.

    He said the government must move in to address the dangers involved with overusing antibiotics in livestock production.

    The don said routinely feeding healthy farm animals low doses of antibiotics to boost growth and prevent disease could promote hard-to-kill, antibiotic-resistant germs that could infect humans.

    He   proposed restricting the use of antibiotics in agriculture in order not to jeopardise human health.

    He  warned that the risk to human health from the use of antibiotics in animals could not be quantified, but that it must be regarded as a threat to the therapeutic value of anti-bacterials in both human and animal disease.

    According to him, the  lack of appropriate controls over agricultural uses of antibiotics continues to jeopardise the usefulness of antibiotics for treating human diseases.

    To address critics’ concerns, he urged the government to  step in and regulate the  uses of antibiotics.

    In recent years, public health experts say there has been  alarming increase in the number of bacteria that have grown resistant to antibiotics, leading to severe, untreatable illnesses in humans.

  • ‘How bio-businesses can boost job creation’

    ‘How bio-businesses can boost job creation’

    JOBs can  be created from bio-energy projects which turn  agricultural waste into a valuable resource if the government  provides an enabling environment,  the Director, AfricaRegion,Cassava Adding Value for Africa(CAVA),Dr Kola Adebayo  has said.

    Adebayo said the government can  support industry, processors, growers, universities and federal laboratories to develop new methods for converting agricultural and food processing residue and wastes into commercially valuable “bio-based” energy and industrial products.

    He  said  there is potential for economic growth  if  the industry  develops methods for converting agricultural and food processing residue and wastes into bio-based fuels, power and industrial products, such as chemicals for plastics, solvents and fibres.

    He  said industry, processors and growers will use and profit from products and technologies, adding  that there is potential for economic growth by maintaining momentum for the emerging bio-based industry.

    Adebayo said the bio-based industry  should get a better chance to grow agriculture and there should be  initiatives to  help businesses who want to invest and create new jobs .

    He also called for resources to spur the commercialisation of agricultural innovations.

    Bio-based products are usually made from renewable agricultural materials such as corn, soybeans, straw and other plants. They include fuels, chemicals, materials and direct energy produced by biogas.

    According to him, bio-based movement can economically stimulate agriculture.

    He said local manufacturers can use agricultural waste to make their products and this  will create more opportunities, particularly in financing and capital for this industry.

    Such projects  create jobs directly and another 1,000 jobs for hauling, sorting and labelling garbage prior to its processing as the sector increase its capacity  to collect waste across  farms  around the country

  • ‘Finance gap threat to agric’

    A GREEN revolution cannot materialise in Nigeria if effort is not made to secure finance for agriculture, the Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Prof Ini Akpabio, has warned.

    He said to strengthen the sector, the focus should be on increasing public budgets for agriculture and exploring partnerships with the private sector.

    At the moment, he  said, the gap in finance is more acute and that less than 10 per cent of small farmers have  access to finance they need to expand their production and raise their income.

    He said the sector has struggled to access the financing it needs for sustained growth, adding that in most cases, it was who politicians benefit  from the government‘s schemes to boost agriculture to the detriment of genuine farmers.

    He said failures in critical infrastructure, such as inadequate cold storage facilities, unexpected disruptions in commodities trading, lack of adequate feeder roads to production areas, inadequate dry storage facilities, and congested ports prohibiting the export or import of products are threat to the sector.

    Akpabio said farmers were confronting  delays in the supply of critical input, such as fertiliser, seed and fuel because of transportation difficulties in getting goods to market.

    Without tackling these constraints, and their effect on lending, the don said green revolution would not be achieved, calling for investment in the sector.

    He advised also that clustering farmers into cooperatives would  help mitigate repayment default  risk, noting that making farmers dependent on each other and therefore less likely to default on a group, but also giving them greater negotiating strength.

    He called on the government to offer tax incentives and make preferential procurement choices for companies that source from small farmers and to developing inclusive financial models that combine incentives, reduce debt risk and promote longer-term agribusiness model.

    Akpabio  advised that  the government to come  up with proposals aimed at helping it address the key challenges hampering the involvement of youths.