The agriculture sector has gained a lot of attention in the last few years and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has witnessed a series of changes in leadership as a result of President Muhammadu Buhari’s interest in diversifying the economy away from oil, JULIANA AGBO writes.
Achieving food security has been one of the major focuses of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration since 2015.
This is to diversify the economy away from oil and make agriculture take its pride of place. However, several policies have been made to make Nigeria self-sufficient in food production.
Policy initiatives such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Anchor Borrowers’ Programme for rice and wheat launched by President Buhari in Kebbi State, 2015, has made a lot of farmers go into rice production.
Although, the agriculture sector has witnessed other policy pronouncements from two different ministers who chaired the affairs of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for the past six years.
The ministry headed by Chief Audu Ogbeh between 2015 and 2019 made a lot of policy pronouncements and initiated several projects.
Although, some of the policy promises were fulfilled by him, while others couldn’t see the light of the day.
The importation of Brazilian grass seeds to grow on the 50,000 hectares grazing reserves to prevent cattle from roaming and to curtail the frequent clashes between herders and farmers, was one of the failed policies.
The replacement of the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) with Agricultural Input and Mechanisation Supply (AIMS), three years after its cancellation is another failed policy.
This was to be established in all 774 local governments of the federation and involve the recruitment, training and support of three agricultural distributors in each local council, as they would be provided with certified seeds, fertilisers, farm equipment, such as tractors, and threshers, among others, for onward lending to farmers.
Another unfulfilled policy pronouncement that Nigerians are yet to stop talking about was the creation of cattle colonies which was included in the 10-year National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) approved by the Federal Economic Council in 2019 to check incessant crises between herders and the farmers.
Unfortunately, Ogbeh who could not meet up with some of the initiatives before the end of Buhari’s first term was not returned to continue the affairs of the ministry in August 2019.
However, with the replacement of Ogbeh with Alhaji Sabo Nanono on August 21, 2019, Nigerians felt that the former Minister didn’t do enough in the food sector to become a two-time minister.
Upon resumption, Nanono expressed high hopes of moving Nigeria’s agricultural sector forward even though he said there was “no hunger in Nigeria”.
Although, there were a lot of expectations from the agricultural sector because of the level of hunger in the land, a situation that Nigerians are yet to come out of.
Nanono, who highlighted the great potentials of Nigerians in many spheres of life, said his being in charge would scale up efforts towards initiating ways of discovering these potentials especially as they relate to the agricultural sector.
He made several promises to include, revamping the agricultural research institutes across the country to promote sectoral growth and food security in the country, registration of 10 million farmers across the country and the launch of agricultural mechanisation programme into full operation in the first quarter of 2022 targeting 60, 000 tractors.
In October 2019, he was able to launch the ‘National Gender Policy on Agriculture to enhance the equality of access to resources for both genders.
In March 2020, he unveiled the National Fertiliser Quality Control Act 2019 to boost farmers’ productivity and curb the production of adulterated fertilisers.
Unfortunately, the minister could not fulfil most of the promises mentioned until he was sacked by President Buhari on September 1, 2021, and replaced by Dr Mohammad Abubakar who was a serving minister of the Environment.
Currently, Nigerians are of high expectations due to the increase in food prices across the country.
With the increase in the high cost of food and with time running out of the present administration, stakeholders have advised Abubakar to do less talk and more action.
Some of the stakeholders in separate interviews with The Nation called for synergy between the government and the players in the sector to design programmes to assist smallholder farmers and also encourage Nigerians to go into food production.
The National President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Architect Kabir Ibrahim, urged the minister to involve all stakeholders in the agricultural space and all the efforts of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) and cross-cutting departments and agencies should be synergised towards the attainment of food security.
Ibrahim, while noting that the Agriculture Promotion Policy from 2016 expired in 2020, called on the Minister to consolidate a new policy instead of doing anything else.
On farmers capturing, Ibrahim said Nigeria has over 40 million farmers who are waiting to be captured for easy access.
“Without the registration of farmers, the government can’t plan for anything that will benefit Nigerians.”
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He called on the minister to strategise on ways to boost food production by involving programmes for smallholder farmers, sensitise and encourage Nigerians to go into food production.
He, however, reiterated the need to work with people who know agriculture and what should be done to achieve food security.
He said: “The president is very clear on what he wants for agriculture, the issue is just the driver and the minister is supposed to be the main driver of agriculture in Nigeria, should work with the people who know what to do in the agriculture space only.
Similarly, National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN) President Anibe Achimugu urged the minister not to just continue with the programmes he met but to try and improve on them.
Achimugu said such collaboration would lead to bumper harvest and crash prices of food.
“We know where these farmers are and that is why we have the rural development which is very critical in terms of access to farmers and farms to be easy to get the product out, sometimes we are not even talking about tarred roads, but a good earth graded road would help”.
He also called on the minister to take advantage of technology that is available to encourage farmers.
He said: “Solar power is critical at the grassroots level, like for instance, some farmers cannot be reached due to poor network issues, but with solar power, networks and other basic things like light can be brought in.
“These are things that will encourage the farmers so if the ministry is able to trickle these things down, I am sure the farmers will do anything they tell them subsequently”.
Speaking further, Achimugu emphasised the need to have well-trained extension agents to help the farmers with some techniques and prepare them against climate change, flooding and drought.
He said the extension service is very critical and that has been a major gap.
“Technology in agriculture is very key. We are talking about the population of Nigerians going up to 400 million in 2050 and I think these are the times we need to prepare and if we see the benefit of biotech in seed improvement, like the ones designed to fight climate change, we need to embrace these seeds to prepare ourselves.
“Let Nigeria not become a dumping ground but let it be able to produce so much that we can take over, we have the land and we have the people, these things are critical and we need to open up the land as well.
While noting that mechanisation is key in achieving food security, he lamented that Nigeria is far behind in the adoption of mechanised farming.
“As we want to support smallholder farmers, it is very important that we begin to think mechanised large scale farming, this doesn’t mean that we are abandoning the smallholder farmers, for instance, if you have a large farm in if we looking at agriculture the value chain approach which is what the CBN has started.
The NACOTAN President called for the need to engage a large number of Nigerian youth in agriculture by making it attractive, he said a lot will be achieved in all areas of agriculture especially in the area of the value chain.
“If we don’t engage the youth, it will only translate into social insecurity, let’s encourage them back in agriculture, there is no part of Nigeria that is not viable, if we provide basic amenities for them in the 774 local government areas, we will see a lot of people who are interested in agriculture.”
He said a lot of people will also go into agro-processing thereby saving the country huge sums of money annually.
“By engaging in agro-processing, this means we will process all our raw materials here in Nigeria and also have an export value that will give us money through foreign exchange,” he noted.
Ken Ogiamien, who is into livestock and seed production said agriculture, is facing a very serious challenge in the country due to insecurity and lack of raw materials.
Ogiamien, who is the Group Head, KADS Group, lamented that prices of feed have gone higher than ever before in the history of this country due to the availability of raw materials to produce them.
He said: “If you are going to be tracing the problem, you trace it to the farm and the value chain. The problem is getting the people to have access to cheaper and quality seeds.
“Right now we can’t afford to buy seeds that are coming in from outside the country due to exchange rate; even though we seed producers still depend on the first generational seeds for us to be able to reproduce. Even when you get these seeds, you can’t plant due to farmers and herders’ crises.”
He urged the government to look for a way to bring a permanent solution to insecurity.
Samson Jubril, a smallholder farmer who is also into seed production, said Nigeria’s agriculture potential remains untapped due to low-yield seedlings.
Jubril, who called on the minister to work towards developing the research institutes for quality seed production, said post-harvest losses experienced by farmers come from poor yielding seeds.
“Although time is running out, we are expecting the minister to do his best before leaving the office,” he said.
