The Nation Newspaper

Category: Business

  • USAID to support farmers with $3b

    USAID to support farmers with $3b

    THE United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will provide $3 billion (about N480 billion) guarantee to farmers who fail to pay back loans they secure from banks.

    The agreement for this guarantee was signed yesterday in Abuja. It is expected to ease financing in the agriculture sector.

    Under the deal, the United States would immediately provide guarantee of up to $100 million in lending to banks.

    Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adeshina signed on behalf of the Federal Government while USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, signed for the United States.

    The agreement will enable the parties to use co-guarantees, technical assistance, combined training and workshops for local banks and agriculturally-linked enterprises to encourage the growth of the agriculture sector in the country.

    Shah said the facility would help to increase private financing for the agricultural sector in addition to reducing banks’apathy for agriculture lending.

    Shah expressed worry that despite “the promise and success that the future holds for Nigerian agriculture, nearly 70 per cent of small scale farmers lack access to financing.”

  • ‘Cocoa export ban won’t help farmers’

    The National President, Cocoa Association of Nigeria, Mr Sayina Robinson Riman has said a ban on the cocoa beans export will not improve the fortunes of local farmers.

    Riman, who was reacting to a statement credited to Cocoa Processors Association of Nigeria (CPAN), which called for a ban on the export of cocoa beans from Nigeria, said local farmers need the export market to earn income.

    Besides, he added that the cocoa processing factories lack the capacity to handle cocoa produced locally since their installed capacity is lower than the country’s production estimate of about 270,000 metric tonnes.

    While acknowledging the huge investments involved in the setting up of cocoa processing plants, he said the cost of running these factories profitably and the challenge of infrastructure failure.

    The CAN chief noted that the position taken by the processors was not only myopic, but smacked of selfishness and intolerance.

    Riman stressed that each link in the value chain of cocoa was as valuable as the other and none may undermine the relevance of any other.

    He noted that farmers and traders play critical roles like input providers, researchers, warehouse and collateral managers, exporters, processors, transporters and development agencies.

    While recalling that a similar attempt to ban the export of cocoa beans in 1992, also championed by a group of cocoa processors,led to farmers abandoning cocoa farms and even many farms being destroyed, Riman warned that suggestions about placing a ban on the export of cocoa beans would send the wrong signals to the government and the international community.

    Riman said the position being canvassed by the processors was alien to free enterprise, adding that neither Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroun, nor any cocoa producing country banned cocoa beans export.

    He described as disturbing the press interviews by cocoa processors, saying there is a platform for such views in CAN.

    He urged the cocoa processors to look inward to solve their challenges instead of dabbling into what would cause ripples in the sector.

    According to him, processors should take advantage of the cocoa transformation agenda of the Federal Government to embark on backward integration to overcome their supply challenges.

    He wondered why the processors wanted to truncate the cocoa transformation agenda of the government. He noted that the objective of the scheme was to increase production by over 100 per cent in the next three years.

    Chairman, Ondo State Farmers Congress, Evangelist Joshua Oyedele, said the processors were misguided.

    According to him, any attempt to ban cocoa bean export will be resisted by his colleagues.

    He stated that the move by processors was retrogressive, and anti-people.

    Oyedele sees the move as an attempt to defraud cocoa farmers since the processors will collect their beans without paying for them.

    He urged them to act like businessmen that they ought to be and stop chasing shadows.

    “If the government bans cocoa beans export do the processors have capacity to take up all the cocoa we produce in Ondo State, not to mention Nigeria? ” Oyedele queried.

    “If they had that capacity, then they would not be asking for a ban on cocoa beans. This is a free enterprise economy.The days of cocoa board are over. No one will deceive us any longer. We shall fight anyone who wants to kill us and our children to the last blood,” he added.

    Oyedele asked the government to ignore the processors, adding that their request ran contrary to the government’s policy to increase cocoa production from the 250,000 metric tonnes to 500,000 metric tonnes in the next three cropping seasons.

    “They have tried to use every means to steal our sweat and have been unable to do it. Now they want to use the instrument of the government. It will not work,” the farmers’ leader added.

  • Govt urged to tackle power outages

    The Federal Government has been urged to save meat processing and cold businesses from collapse by finding a solution to continued power outage.

    Speaking with The Nation, an Animal Production specialist, Prof Abiodun Adeloye, said meat processing firms and cold room operators are losing money because of erratic power supply. As a result, they have to run ttheir generators to keep their business afloat.

    Adeloye of the Department of Animal Production, University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), said locating meat processing plants in industrial sectors would save them from power outages.

    He said many companies are facing challenges in cold chain warehousing because the government has been unable to provide any solution to the electricity emergency.

    Noting the market for pre-cooked and processed foods has expanded and has the potential to expand rapidly, Adeloye expressed concern about adequate power supply.

    Improving supply, Adeloye said, would impact on the development of frozen food business and eventually value addition, reduction in post-harvest losses and price stability.

    For the industry to grow, the don said the operators need a guarantee of reliable electricity supply as well as the potential for substantial price benefits.

    Under the current dispensation, he said the operators don’t have control over the electricity at their plants and warehouses.

    He said they are unable to ensure quality by switching off the freezers at night and not providing backup generators.

    Some smaller outlets cannot afford generators for the freezers and can only afford to have generators that run a few light bulbs or fans.

    He said agricultural produce worth millions of naira have been lost to the electricity crisis, which has seen rolling power cuts — referred to locally as ‘load shedding’ — across the country over the past few months.

    He said the energy crisis has resulted in substantial losses, but the extent of the damage is difficult to determine.

    He said the energy crisis is a threat to food security,where a farmer has to invest in expensive equipment.

    Operators battle increased price of electricity and diesel.

    The major constraint the industry is facing is the rising cost of production, he said.

  • Farmers seek weather insurance

    A WEATHER insurance scheme would reduce losses many farmers suffered last year after poor weather, the President, Agriculture Graduates Association of Nigeria, Comrade Michael Egbuta, has said.

    He called on the government to introduce a national package of drought-related programmes. He said this should focus on risk management and preparedness for farmers and rural communities rather than crisis management.

    With climate change projected to increase the frequency, intensity, and duration of droughts, he said stronger national drought policies are needed to lessen the devastating impacts of this recurring natural disaster.

    Egbuta stressed that agriculture is dependent on environmental conditions, such as soils, climate, and weather. Because these factors cannot be modified, he urged the government to achieve significant efficiency improvements in these areas.

    The government,he said, should first do vulnerability and impact assessment of a drought disaster, create a monitoring and early warning system, and relief measures once the drought is under way.

    According to Egbuta, the association members lost output in its farms in 38 villages in Niger State due to the extreme flooding which affected harvests.

    He said farmers’associations and the Federal Government should consult to plan for agriculture, in what is expected to be an insecure food future underpinned by rapidly increasing population and rising demand for food products.

    He urged the government to support plant breeders striving to improve food security to develop drought tolerant seeds across the different climatic zones of the country.

    To meet the demands of the growing population and to provide food security, Egbuta said farmers need to increase the production.

  • Fed Govt, cashew association to float N10b fund

    The National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN) and Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development are to float a N10 billion development fund to develop the crop.

    National President of the asociation Tola Faseru said in Lagos that the funds, which would be sourced from local and international financial organisations will be loaned to 50 processing factories across the country.

    Each factory, Faseru said,would process 2,000 metric tonnes yearly, resulting to 100,000 metric tonnes.

    According to him, this will increase the amount of cashew processed locally to 75 per cent. He was optimistic that the fund would help to revolutionise cashew cultivation.

    He said the industry needs investment to boost supplies and farmer’s contribution to the economy.

    He said there is need to direct resources at improving infrastructure to make agriculture efficient.

    He said improvement of infrastructure, such as roads, electricity and extension services, were important if the nation was to make agriculture more efficient.

    Faseru said the association was determined to improve the industry by 2015.

    He said the biggest difficulties facing the cashew industry are unstable supply source of raw materials for export and shrinking cashew acreage, productivity and output.

    He said also the products are not diverse, the domestic market is weak, input costs are rising, technologies are backward, and business scales are small.

    He said the industry will unlikely achieve the target if it fails to solve the problems.

    He explained that since processed cashew nuts account for only three per cent of export volume, the target of 30 per cent of well-processed cashew nuts will be a huge challenge if inadequate machinery and equipment are not upgraded. He added that this is a challenge for the industry.

    He said without improving the Nigeria cashew, the nuts will not fetch good price at the international market.

    He said it is time the industry invested in processing to raise the value of cashew nuts.

    He suggested solutions for cashew industry development. they include long-term human resources development plan, downstream processing and introduction of science.

  • Farmers association bemoans declining price of cotton

    All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Gombe State chapter, has lamented the declining price of cotton in the market.

    The Secretary of the association, Alhaji Gambo Sarkin-Noma, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe that a kilogramme of the commodity costs between N70,000 and N75,000.

    He said the amount was too small. He appealed to the government to intervene to motivate farmers.

    Sarkin-Noma called on the government to provide farmers with insecticides, fertiliser and other agricultural input to boost cotton production in the state.

    “We want the government to double efforts during this farming season in assisting farmers as it will improve the economy,” Sarkin-Noma said.

    According to him, farmers are facing a lot of challenges which include lack of improved seeds and insecticides.

    He praised the efforts of the Federal Government in providing improved cotton seeds to farmers during the last farming season.

    A cotton farmer and dealer, Alhaji Habu Maikaho, said a tonne of cotton which used to cost about N200,000 has now been reduced to between N75,000 and N80,000.

    He said the low price of cotton would not encourage farmers to grow the commodity.

    In another development,the state government has distributed 900 tonnes of grains to 6,653 farmers affected by last year’s flood disaster in the state.

    The state Commissioner for Agriculture, Alhaji Dahiru Buba-Biri, made this known this in Gombe.

    He said the foodstuff, comprising sorghum and millet, were delivered to the state by the Federal Government, to cushion the effects of the flooding on the victims.

    “To ensure that the grains reached the targeted beneficiaries, the ministry created five redemption centres for the 11 local government areas.”

    Buba-Biri announced plans by the state government to complement the Federal Government’s efforts by providing other relief materials to the victims.

    According to him, farmers will be assisted with farm input to embark during the dry and rainy seasons.

    He said the grains were meant to reduce the hardship faced by the victims and not compensation for what they lost.

    “I want them to understand that the two governments – Federal and Gombe State, sympathise with their predicament. This assistance is not meant to replace or bring back what they lost, but at least a gesture of pity and sympathy and a kind of stop-gap for people to get temporary relief,’’ he added.

    The commissioner appealed to farmers to be patient and support the government in implementing its programmes and policies aimed at developing the state.

  • ‘Biotechnology will address constraints of crop production’

    THE African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) has said plant biotechnology will address some of the problems farmers encounter during farming.

    The foundation’s Project Manager (Cowpea), Dr Prince Addae, said this in Abuja.

    He said until the advent of biotechnology, science was not able to control or develop resistance chemicals for some of these crops.

    ‘’Since 1996, products of this technology have been introduced to the world and proven in countries like US, Brazil, Argentina, China; all these countries are using these products.’’

    Addae said the foundation had embarked on the development of an improved variety of cowpea. He said the cowpea project would help improve varieties that could withstand the pod borer (maruca vitrata) and enhance farmers’ yields and income.

    According to him, the pod borer inflicts severe damage to cowpea, leading to yield losses of between 70 per cent and 80 per cent in severe infestation.

    He said the use of insecticides had not been adopted by many farmers due to the prohibitive costs.

    “AATF is addressing this problem by facilitating the development of Maruca-resistant transgenic cowpea varieties, thereby minimising insecticide use and its effects on health and the environment.’’

    He said the project was developed at the Institute of Agricultural Research, Zaria, Kaduna State.

    The AATF is a non-profit organisation that facilitates and promotes public-private partnerships for access and delivery of appropriate agricultural technologies for sustainable use by smallholder farmers in Sub-saharan Africa.

    This is done through innovative partnerships and effective stewardship along the entire value chain. The foundation also serves as a one-stop-shop that provides expertise and know-how that facilitates identification, access, development, delivery and utilisation of proprietary agricultural technologies.

    AATF works toward food security and poverty reduction in Sub-saharan Africa, and its structure and operations draw on best practices and resources of the public and private sectors.

  • Harmattan good for farming, says AFAN chairman

    THE current harmattan is good for crops, Chairman, All

    Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) in Enugu State, Chief Alfred Eneh, has said.

    He said in Enugu that with the excessive rainfall recorded last year, the harmattan would not only dry the waters, but make the soil soft for air to aid the growth of the crops.

    “The harmattan is very good for farming because it will dry up the leaves, they fall down to become natural manure for and it will in-turn make the soil fertile as the rains will enter very easily inside the soil.

    “My only advice is for the farmers not to burn the bushes before farming as it will affect the nutrients in the soil that will assist crops to grow bountifully,’’he said.

    Eneh said the farmers were expecting the government to sustain the tempo of the agriculture transformation agenda.

    According to him, the process of loan acquisition for farmers should be made less cumbersome while agricultural input, seedlings and fertiliser should be made available to them on time to mitigate the impact of last year’s flooding.

    He called on the farmers in the state to increase their farm size for cost-effectiveness as the government was ready to encourage commercial agriculture and cooperative societies.

    He also urged those who did not participate in last year’s registration of farmers to do so to benefit from the government’s input.

    Meanwhile, fish sellers in Makurdi have attributed high prices to weather conditions.

    They said the harmattan winds and the reduction of water level in River Benue was not good for farming.

    During separate interviews, they said the harmattan winds, which dried most parts of the river, made fishing difficult.

    They said following the drying up of the river, fishes went into hiding in muddy places in highly secluded parts of the river.

    Others blamed the hike in prices to high fares as most traders travelled to Adamawa and Borno states to buy smoked fish.

    Mrs Ramatu Ibrahim, a fish seller at the High Level Market in Makurdi, blamed the fishermen for increasing the price.

    “Usually, we buy from these Jukun fishermen, who sell at moderate prices but since the start of the harmattan, the price also changed,” she said.

    She added that fish sold for N1,300 before, now go for N1,600 while a heap of five dried fish that was sold for N1,400 at the market sells for N1,700.

  • Nigeria can rank 13th among world’s top economies, says report

    Nigeria can rank 13th among world’s top economies, says report

    Nigeria has the potential to be the fastest growing economy among the world’s top 20 economies from now to 2050, according to the latest report by World in 2050.

    The growth and placement are, however, premised on the country’s judicious use of its oil and energy resources to develop and improve on its derelict infrastructure.

    The country should apply its oil wealth to develop a broader-based economy with better infrastructure and institutions, which will support long term productivity growth, the report indicated.

    With a projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of about $4 trillion by 2050 and a yearly average real GDP growth rate of around six per cent, as well as a youthful and growing working population, Nigeria is projected to rank 13th among the world’s largest economies, if it can realise its steam.

    The report entitled: World in 2050: The BRICs and beyond: prospects, challenges and opportunities, said a growing, prime working age population, together with rising average rates of schooling and technological progress, drive theh country’s strong growth prospect.

    A partner with PwC Nigeria, Andrew S. Nevin, said: “Nigeria’s projections for population, education levels and technological progress are very strong. Nigeria lags behind with regard to its investment rate. Productivity is lower in Nigeria due to weaker infrastructure and institutions, as well as an over-reliance on oil revenues. By investing in these areas and diversifying its economy, Nigeria can realise its potential by 2050.

     ”Over the past decade, the private sector has played an enormously positive role in sectors like telecoms, retail, and financial services in Nigeria and throughout Africa. For Nigeria to realise its potential, it is going to require governments at the state and federal levels to play their role in fostering the right type of environment, including improvements in the rule of law, greater transparency and strengthening of the health and education systems, and enabling the development of key sectors, with power being the most important. Many strides have been made in this regard and they need to keep coming,” he added.

    PwC Chief Economist/co-author of the report,  John Hawksworth, said: “The shift in the global economic centre of gravity is clear. The E7 could overtake the G7 before 2020, and by 2050, China, the US and India could be by far the largest economies – with a big gap to Brazil in fourth place, ahead of Japan. By the same time, Russia, Mexico and Indonesia could be bigger than Germany or the UK; Turkey could overtake Italy; and Nigeria could rise up the league table, as could Vietnam and South Africa in the longer term.

    “There are huge opportunities for Western companies in the emerging markets – but also great competitive challenges from fast-growing emerging market companies. Governments also face huge challenges, not least in relation to global warming as a result of this rapid pace of economic development,” he argued.

     The report lists growth estimates as driven by: Growth in the labour force, as proxied by United Nations projections for working age population; growth in the quality of labour which is assumed to be related to current and projected average education levels in the workforce; growth in the physical capital stock, which is determined by new capital investment less depreciation of the capital stock; and technological progress, which drives improvements in total factor productivity.

  • USAID to support farmers with $3b

    USAID to support farmers with $3b

    THE United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will provide $3 billion (about N480 billion) guarantee to farmers who fail to pay back loans they secure from banks.

    The agreement for this guarantee was signed yesterday in Abuja. It is expected to ease financing in the agriculture sector.

    Under the deal, the United States would immediately provide guarantee of up to $100 million in lending to banks.

    Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adeshina signed on behalf of the Federal Government while USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, signed for the United States.

    The agreement will enable the parties to use co-guarantees, technical assistance, combined training and workshops for local banks and agriculturally-linked enterprises to encourage the growth of the agriculture sector in the country.

    Shah said the facility would help to increase private financing for the agricultural sector in addition to reducing banks’apathy for agriculture lending.

    Shah expressed worry that despite “the promise and success that the future holds for Nigerian agriculture, nearly 70 per cent of small scale farmers lack access to financing.”