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Tag: agriculture

  • FG to eliminate chemical fertilisers in agriculture, says Ogbeh

    The Federal Government says it will gradually phase out the use of chemical fertilisers in agriculture to ensure the production of healthy foods for the people.

    Chief Audu Ogbeh, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said this on Sunday while inspecting the first organic banana plantation by an Indian company, Contec Global Agro Limited in Kwali.

    Ogbeh, who expressed worry over the increasing numbers of liver and kidney diseases among young people, explained that the objective was the elimination of dangerous elements from foods.

    He noted that the move would also help to reduce the damages in the soil through the application of fertilisers.

    ‘‘We are slowly going to begin to eliminate chemical fertilisers. Organic nature means that this is what nature is all about without polluting it with salt, the chemical fertilisers are salt.

    ‘‘They damage the soil of all kinds and over a while, you find out that the soil is no longer good for you because they destroy the microbes which make the soil more productive. We need to make the food healthier because a lot of self-poisoning is going on in the country.

    ‘‘Even the machines we use to grind tomatoes in the market, metal rubbing against metal; particles of heavy metals getting into the food.

    ‘Suddenly, you see a young person in the hospital, like 20 years of age suffering from liver and kidney problem and you ask, do you drink alcohol, he says no, then what is happening?

    ‘‘We are not probing enough but we want to start in agriculture, eliminating dangerous elements from our food.

    ‘‘The place to begin is the farm, right from where you are planting, from the soil, from the bio-chemicals, the water, all of that has to be controlled and then you have healthy foods,’’ the minister said.

    Ogbeh said the company was already conducting an experiment to develop microbes from the soil in the laboratory and putting them back into the soil without the use of chemicals.

    The minister, who commended the owners of the organic banana farm, said that the Federal Government would continue to support both local and foreign investments in the agriculture sector.

    ‘‘We are happy that in spite of the difficulties people face, they still remain and invest.

    ‘‘This is the message from Mr President, stay close to the investors, and give them all the support they need. If there are things you can’t handle yourself, come and tell me about them and I will do that,’’ he said.

    Mr Thomas Chackunkal, the Managing Director, Contec Global Agro, the initiators and owners of the banana farm, said the plantation was a 250 hectare biologically safe demonstration farm.

    Chackunkal said the banana plantation would be replicated in Osun, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Taraba, Edo and Oyo States.

    ‘‘We want to attract the young people. We want a holistic approach to provide all the basic needs like housing, schools, primary health care,’’ he said.

    Contec agro develops organic farming products such as bio-seed, bio-fertiliser, and bio-planting to help Africa develop its agricultural industry and ensure food security for the populace. (NAN)

  • ‘Nigerians need to get involved in agriculture value chain’

    Prof. Sidi Osho is a One aspect of her life that she is passionate about is the agric value chain, which she regrets has not being tapped. Yetunde Oladeinde had an encounter with her recently at the ECOWAS Women In Business, targeted at changing the narratives for women-owned businesses Federation of West African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FEWACCI) in Lagos, where she talked about the opportunities in the agric value chain for women, affecting the youths positively and more.

    In the view of Prof. Sidi Osho, agriculture if well harnessed has potential to change the otherwise poor economic situation of the country.

    Of course, what else do you expect to hear from a professor of Agriculture, Food Science and Technology, who has paid her dues in the sector?

    The university don began her career at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan, where she worked as a scientist. After working for several years at IITA, Osho joined Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago Iwoye as a lecturer and was later appointed as the pioneer vice chancellor Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), Ado Ekiti. Her experience working with women in the sector and identifying their strengths, weaknesses and opportunities helped to identify the many opportunities in the sector.

    First, Osho took a look at the ECOWAS Agricultural policy and identified the focus as helping to promote strategic projects for food security and sovereignty. “There is a policy design to increase intra regional trade and we are looking for opportunities to interact and increase trade amongst us. We want to produce global investment and have an environment that is conducive for Regional Agricultural development.”

    She add, “We also want to reduce import but increase export. They want us to increase domestic supply of foods; they want us to improve the agricultural value chain with improved technology. Once you improve agricultural financing, improve infrastructure, roads, railroad, irrigation dams which are necessary for Agriculture to thrive, things would get better. They also want us to promote agricultural investments through the private sector.”

    Osho goes on to explain that the private sector drives the economy. “We must see agriculture as a business and we want to commercialise agriculture along the ECOWAS region and look at long term agric strategies for economic growth, financial opportunities and open market growth. We want to change our open market orientation with digitalisation. How many flights do you want to catch in a week? To do this, we need strategic alliances to be able to drive our opportunities.

    Next Osho goes on to talk about Climate change and its significance to the economy. “Sustainability and the environment are very important and that is why we have flooding all over. We need to be sensitive to our environment. We cannot start dumping refuse, polluting rivers and expect to have healthy fish.”

    To make a mark and compete favourably with others, we need to be conscious of the kind of agriculture that we are known for. “Some of our products have been rejected in international market as a result of poor environmental practices. Now, the trend is organics and the question on the lips of many is if you have organic this or organic that.”

    Those in the value chain, she stressed must change with the times. “The price of an organic raw material is three times double the normal price per tonne. You must be sensitive to the environment. Why are we buying sesame seeds  in the US, they don’t grow it but every time  you eat an hamburger in MacDonalds you find the seed on top of it.”

    Taking a look at the ECOWAS data, Osho, identified some of the products synonymous with the different countries and their potentials. “In the region we have similar crops. They are creating agric business entrepreneurs looking for niche entrepreneurs looking for their potential. Here you have the 4c, Cocoa, Coffee, Cotton and Cassava. Collectively, you can see the connection. Those crops amount to 43 billion US dollars in production value. You can see how rich, we are yet we are not tapping into it.”

    That, Osho informed is equivalent to 12 billion US dollars for export value across four countries. “Coffee has Ethiopia as the African Largest coffee producer, they exported 771 million dollars in 2013 and they are competing with Brazil, Vietnam and Indonesia. Cote D’Voire is the largest Cocoa Producer, generating one third of the worlds Cocoa about 8 billion dollars. Nigeria is also producing Cocoa but we send all as raw materials and we don’t add value to it and just send it.”

    Burkina Faso, she adds is Africa’s largest cotton producer. “In 2013, the global market for cotton was 139 billion dollars. In production value, it is 65 billion US dollars in export. Africa contributes about 6 per cent of the global cotton products, China is competing with us. Cassava is the daily bread of Nigerians and there is nothing we haven’t done with it. We eat cassava and our animals eat the skin. We eat cassava everyday and we are the largest producer in Africa and we produce the worth of 51 billion in US dollars. We produce 20 per cent of the global cassava for export. So, we are thinking of a phenomenon, a policy that is sound, something that will encompass all and bring out agricultural transformations.”.

    This Osho explained would help the country in terms of capacity building and knowing what we are supposed to do and the knowledge we lack. “We must connect to platforms like NACCIMA and FEWACCI; these are institutions that project our interest. I have learnt from all my experiences in academia, research and international work that together we can move mountains.”

    Next she went through the agric value chain from production to consumption and the needs at every phase. “In that pipeline we are going to address a lot of things. If Africans do not feed themselves the poverty would never go. Even when it comes to consumption, you address nutritional value, cost of equipment like tractors or yields per hectares. For instance, I went to a farm where the farmer was told that seeds were high yielding short term maturity. At the end, 20 per cent had fruits; the remaining did not have fruits. Unfortunately, they had planted millions of hectares and factory was ready. So, these are some of the challenges.”

    One other issue, she advised stakeholders to take into consideration is the land tenure system. “When you rent this land and you don’t own the land, it is when you are starting harvesting that the owner would come and say he needs the land. Immediately you leave, he will cultivate what you have. Mechanisation is the way to go because labor is expensive. If you don’t have tractors, you can’t do much. It is detrimental to productivity.”

    Osho also goes down memory lane to recall the experiences of Poultry farmers during the bird flu crisis. “Agric insurance is also not effective for people who have had losses. In the past we had extension services, everyone is now on their own. Policies are inconsistent and every time you have a new Minister of Agric, they will; jettison the old projects and move on to other things. The private sector who is trying to drive the economic engine are faced with all these bottlenecks and at the end of the day the small and medium  scale product are usually more expensive. Government must therefore provide the enabling environment. There is also the problem of marketing with regards to domestic pricing and international pricing and tax rebate. In some countries agric, education and health are tax free but this is not the case in Nigeria and Africa.”

    Also critical to the survival of the operators in the sector is the issue of credibility. “In the international market, the big question is are you credible. They returned our yam from UK and when they hear that it is from Nigeria, they have to check very well, check the moisture and the content. There was a time when we were sourcing Soya beans.”

    How many bags you can really check, she asked rhetorically. “When they checked the bags, they found that they had added ten per cent to make up with 90 per cent stone. When you put this on the scale, you will assume it is okay. But then they started calling us that it was full of stones. So, you need commodity procedures, packaging, technical knowledge and more. You cannot say that you are a farmer and be in isolation. You know exactly where your target market is and you focus on them.

    To buttress the fact, that Osho is familiar with the terrain, she takes you into her world as a farmer. “I sell fresh fish. I already have my market and everyday of the week, they will deliver. If I don’t hear them, I will call them. You must have a strategy. If not, that destroys the joy of the farmer. When you produce and don’t have a market, you cannot be happy. That way they will be forced to sell at ridiculous amounts. The presentation is also very important.”

  • IFAD extends projects to three states

    The International Fund for Agricultural Development ( IFAD ) has disclosed plans to extend the phase two of its Value Chain Development Project (VCDP).

    The programme, which is being implemented in six states, would be extended to three states.

    The IFAD West and Central Africa Regional Director, Lisandro Martins, made these disclosures during a visit to the Cassava Women Processing Center in Lokogoma in Wushishi local government area of Niger state.

    The Nation learnt the IFAD VCDO project, which started in 2015, should have ended in 2020.

    However, the Regional Director did not say how long the next phrase would last.

    “Because of the success we have seen in Niger state, we are planning the extension of the VCDP Project and we will be scaling it up to three additional states,” he stated.

    He confessed the visit to the rice and cassava value chain centres have given the organisation new ideas on how IFAD can support the government of Nigeria in moving the project forward.

    Martins said he was impressed on how enthusiastic the youths and women in the communities welcome the projects and tend to turn it into profit making business that would improve their lives.

    He gave the assurance of the Agency intervention to scale up the processing capacity of the facilities in all the VCDP processing centers to benefit more members of the communities.

    The IFAD Country Director, Nadine Dominique Gbossa said Niger state is the success story of IFAD, which is the reason why the Regional Director was in the state for the visit.

    She explained IFAD had succeeded in linking the producers with the off takers, a development, which she said had greatly improved the income of the farmers and processors.

    The Niger state Programme Coordinator, Dr. Mathew Ahmed disclosed 15,627 farmers in the state, which include 11,948 rice farmers and 3,679 cassava farmers, have benefitted from the programme.

    He added that in the rice production value chain, over 700 youths have been gainfully engaged while over 150 women from other communities go to Lokogoma to learn modern processing techniques and process their garri.

     

  • Agip urges Niger Delta youths to embrace agriculture

    The Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) has urged youths in the Niger Delta to embrace the current revolution in agriculture.

    NAOC, during its 22nd Farmers’ Day celebration, which attracted hundreds of farmers from Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta and Imo States, appealed to youths to key into its Green River Project (GRP) in the region.

    The GRP was held at NAOC-GRP Farms in Igbogene, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

    Chairman of NAOC Limited Guido Brusco, who thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for supporting the company’s GRP since he assumed office in 2015, said: “It is my joy to see that the little seed we sowed 31 years ago has grown into an annual programme that brings stakeholders from all walks of life in an atmosphere of friendship and celebration.

    “This shows that the objective of establishing the scheme, which was to introduce and expose our communities to modern techniques of farming, has been realised.”

    Brusco praised the governments of Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta and Imo states for supporting the initiative.

    NAOC’s General Manager Tiani Alessandro said the theme of the year’s celebration was extremely important because it epitomised the company’s drive to sensitise to empower a critical sector of the populace.

    He said: “Our focus with the GRP has always been to make farming very attractive and accessible to our women, the youths and children, particularly those in secondary schools.

    “This is done through formation of cooperative societies, exposure to techniques of modern farming, provision of the necessary support and tools as well as various scheme.

    “This has led to the training and endowment of 275 youths in 2018 and further proposed training and endowment of 350 youths from our host communities in 2019 in various agro-entrepreneurial schemes to make them self-employed.

    “Our investment in agriculture will continue to get great attention. And so I use this opportunity to encourage our youths and women to embrace agriculture, which has so much potential yet to be fully appropriated.”

    NAOC Vice-Chairman/Managing Director Lorenzo Fiorillio said the celebration afforded the farmers opportunities to showcase their products, network with other stakeholders and the company to reward outstanding farmers.

    He, however, said: “It is sad to note that this year has been particularly difficult for our farmers following devastating flood that ravaged most of the communities in the Niger Delta.

    “As a company, we believe this event will energise farmers all over our areas of operation to put every required efforts towards a bountiful harvest in 2019.”

    Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Otuoke Prof. Seth Accra Jaja, in his keynote address, noted that the Federal Government had shown concern on the need to develop agriculture.

  • Vegetable farming highly profitable, says expert

    Mr David Ogunleti, an agronomist at the Federal College of Agriculture (FCA) Ibadan, on Tuesday urged farmers to engage more in vegetable farming due to its high commercial value.

    Ogunleti gave the advice during the training on profitable dry season vegetable farming organised by Agriculture in Nigeria, Farmers Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society Ltd, in Ibadan.

    He described vegetable farming as a reliable business, especially in the off-season when other crops could not be commercially produced.

    He also said that vegetable production required small area of land for profitable cultivation.

    According to him, vegetable production could generate higher amount of cash income per unit area of land more than other crops and ensure continuous in-flow of cash to farmers.

    Read Also: Embrace farming, Fayemi urges NYSC members

    In addition to these, he explained that vegetable products also had readily available markets.

    On planting of vegetable seeds, Ogunleti advised farmers to always use early maturing varieties of vegetables due to the short cropping period of the dry season.

    “Plant vegetables using direct or transplanting methods in November to April depending on accessibility to the area to be cultivated,” he said.

    Earlier, Dr Olugbemiga Ogunwole, the President, Agriculture in Nigeria, Farmers Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society, said the group was established to promote agriculture and its practices in Nigeria.

    Ogunwole who was represented by the group’s Vice-President, Dr Oyenike Akinusi, said there was a platform for sharing information related to food and agricultural activities among intending and practising farmers.

    Also, the chairperson of the organising committee, Dr Foluke Oluwatoyinbo, said the training comprised lectures on how to grow vegetables, profitability of dry season vegetable production and nutritional benefits of vegetables.

    “We will also learn about classification of vegetables, how to select sites for farms, general cultivation practices for dry season plantation and how to plant vegetables to obtain high profit.

    “The training is loaded with a lot of benefits, therefore make good use of the opportunity provided by it,” she said.

  • Farmers to access loans at 5% interest

    To boost agriculture, five per cent interest loans are coming for farmers. They are also to become shareholders in the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) to give them a sense of beloging. VINCENT IKUOMOLA examines the government’s effort to ensure food-sufficiency.

    MORE incentives are coming the way of farmers. They are to enjoy low interest rate loans from the Bank of Agriculture (BoA).

    Agriculture & Rural Development Minister Audu Ogbe said the Federal Government plans to make loans available to local farmers at five per cent interest.

    According to him, the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) was being repositioned to grant credit facilities to the farmers targeting five percent interest rate loans for farmers to achieve food sufficiency.

    The minister, who spoke yesterday in the company of other members of the Feeral Executive Council (FEC) at a Town Hall Meeting in Dutse, Jigawa State, added that farmers will have access to flexible loans after the completion of the bank’s restructuring in December.

    Besides, he the government has a plan to make farmers shareholders in the bank after the overhaul.

    The meeting, coordinated by Information, Culture & Tourism Minister Lai Mohammed, was the third edition of such parleys ahead of the 2019 presidential election.

    The meeting served as a platform to present the scorecard of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in the agriculture sector in the past three years.

    The parleys are meant to showcase the achievement of the Buhari administration in the agriculture sector.

    As one of the panelists, Ogbe noted that the abandonment of rural dwellers who account for the highest population of farmers was part of the problems facing the country.

    Other panelist are: Suleiman Adamu (Water Resources Minister); Aisha Abubakar (Minister of State for Trade & Investment) and a Special Assistance to governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Olatunde Akanbi.

    He said government’s diversification agenda which gives priority to agriculture has made farmers stronger and independent.

    He noted that with reduced interest rates on loans and provision of inputs, politicians will no longer manipulate citizens with lies as they will no longer depend on handouts from them during elections.

    The minister posited that high interest rate on loans has seriously damaged agriculture, making Nigeria to lose its place as an exporter of farm produce.

    Ogbe stressed that already the reduction of interest rate on lending to farmers at nine per cent has ignited a revolution in agriculture.

    He noted that with the reform of the BoA, which will be completed by next month, the government is targeting five per cent lending rate to farmers.

    His words: “One of the biggest things we recognised was that the biggest hindrance to growth has been outrageous interest rate. From 1986 when our economic disaster began through the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), interest rate went up to 25-30 per cent.

    “I am not an economist but I keep on asking; how can anybody produce anything profitably at the interest rate of 25 per cent? How can a farmer grow rice if he or she borrows at 25 per cent and put in the market to to compete with what we are importing form Thailand and Europe. When in those countries, the interest rate is three per cent?

    “With the Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP), it came down to nine per cent. The first loan was N40 billion to framers. That money within one year, rose to N249 billion. It proved a point that with a reduced interest rate in this country, for agriculture and industry, Nigeria would have no business complaining of poverty, unemployment or hunger.

    “By mere reducing interest rate to nine per cent, great things are happening. Reduce interest rates, give inputs to farmers, and mobilise them, Nigeria will get back to where she was.

    “I have better news too; we are quietly reforming the Bank of Agriculture. The Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) has almost completed its work. Where are going to restructure the bank. Farmers will become shareholders of that bank. And we are looking at bringing the interest rate down to five per cent for agriculture. By then, we can challenge the world to a contest.”

    The minister also pointed out that the revolution in agriculture by the present administration has now turned Nigeria into an exporter of agricultural products.

    “In July this year, the Tin Can Island published a report that Agricultural export has risen by 150 per cent. Containers leaving Nigeria are no longer going empty,” he said.

    The CBN promised to sustain its support for agriculture as part of efforts to make the country self-sufficient in food.

    Speaking through his special assistant, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele explained that what the apex bank intervenes by granting loans to farmers at single digit interest rate to support agriculture through commercial banks and other financial institutions.

    He said: “In the past four years, CBN has been so supportive of the government, especially in the agricultural revolution of the government.

    “The flagship of course of which you all know is the Anchor borrower  programme, which was launched in November 17, 2015, by Mr. President and since then, the CBN has supported over 850,000 small rural farmers. The CBN has disbursed over a hundred and sixty billion under the anchor borrower programme.

    “Why the programme is very popular is because the target is small rural farmers. There are lots of other programmes the CBN has done targeting large scale commercial farmers, small sale commercial farmers and other enterprises. But this is specifically for small rural farmers.”

    He explained that the ABP was not meant for rice farmers alone, though about 80 per cent of buy-in has been from rice farmers.

    The programme, he said, supports 15 different commodities like cassava, fish groundnut, cotton, maize, poultry, soya beans, and oil palm among others.

    He listed another programme being supported by the CBN as the presidential fertiliser programme.

    This he noted, explained the fall in the price of fertiliser, which now sells for N5, 500 and has also saved the county a lot of foreign reserves.

    The CBN, he said, also supports the paddy rice programme, the food security programme, which is for large enterprises.

    Comparing the impact of agriculture revolution in the country along five major commodities, he said: “What we have done is that we have looked at five key commodities, we have taken sugar, milk, rice, tomatoes and wheat. In 2013, the country saved $1.4 billion to import these commodities into the country. By the end of 2015, that figure at a time was over 30 per cent $971 million dollars, rice at that was $590 million.

    “As at the end of 2017, that figure had reduced by almost 60 per cent the value of food import into Nigeria for these five commodities. At the end of 17, we only spent $678.6 coming from $1.4 billion.”

    The information minister warned that Nigerians should not expected food exporting countries to help them to achieve food sufficiency.

    Mohammed said: “if the country is to achieve self-sufficiency in food it must look inward.”

    The minister also urged Nigerians to see as fake news that local production is reducing.

    Rather he said the country has experienced a rapid growth in rice production over the last three years.

    He noted that it was untrue that the country imported 400,000 metric tonnes more than the quantity of rice imported in 2017.

    The minister said: “Please permit me to alert Nigerians to the reality out there. In pursuing our agricultural revolution, which will ultimately lead to self-sufficiency in the national staples, we should not expect accolades and support from outside, especially from countries that have hitherto been the main exporters of food items such as rice to Nigeria.

    “Every nation pursues its national interest, and it is definitely not in their interest for Nigeria to produce what it consumes, because it means you will no longer import from such countries.

    “The conspiracy to thwart Nigeria’s push toward self- sufficiency in rice did not start today. In 2015, the government was put under undue pressure to import rice ostensibly to make up for a massive shortage, when in the real sense there was a glut of paddy rice produced locally.

    “It is in that context that Nigerians should see the recent fake news that Nigeria imported 400,000 metric tonnes more than the quantity of rice it imported in 2017. The report, quoting the 2018 United States Department of Agriculture World Markets and Trade Report, also posited that Nigeria’s local rice production is dropping.

    “When the figures were challenged, they said it was based on the assumptions – unrealistic as they were – such as satellite mapping of farms, expected demand by politicians for election campaigns and expected losses from flooding.”

    Quoting the CBN, the minister stressed that the volume of rice importation into Nigeria declined drastically this year.

    The decline he explained was as a result of concerted efforts by the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development and the interventions of the CBN.

    The Emir of Dutse, Dr. Nuhu Mohammed Sanusi, decried that his emirate has been collecting loans with interest rates as high as 19 per cent contrary to CBN’s claim of single digit interest rate.

    According to him, the emirate has approached the CBN on the issue but to no avail.

    He also encouraged the Federal Government to look into the real problems of agriculture as the sector goes hand in hand with infrastructural development.

    Noting that the agricultural sector will improve significantly with efficient transportation system, especially the rail services, the emir, stressed the need for more research and education for farmers, especially women.

    He said that farmers constitute 50 per cent of residents in the rural areas, saying that with their low level of education, they cannot benefit from the new technology in farming.

     

  • Agriculture for empowerment

    SIR: Nigeria is currently ranked the country with the highest number of extremely poor people. It is estimated that 87 million, which represents 45% of its total population, are currently living in extreme poverty.

    According to statistics, the poverty rate in Nigeria’s South-west is 19.3 per cent; South-south, 25.2 per cent; Southeast is about 27.4 per cent; North-central, 42.6 per cent; North-east, 76.8 percent while the poverty level in the Northwest is 81.1 per cent.

    The weak growth in the formal economy (0.8% in 2017) suggests that employment in this space will be relatively inadequate to reduce poverty. Also, the unstructured nature of the informal sector of the economy, coupled with harsh conditions, poor power supply and inadequate government interventions make the whole outlook bleak.

    Nevertheless, agriculture can be used as an effective tool to fight poverty and combat unemployment. One way of achieving this is by making it attractive to young people. To achieve this, the practical aspect of agriculture in the school’s curriculum should be given equal attention as the theory. One way of doing this is by establishing viable school farms in both our private and public primary and secondary schools across the country. The idea behind this is to make agriculture an integral part of the school culture, so the pupils and students are well positioned to appreciate farming, and make it a lifestyle, even when they do not intend to specialise in it. The knowledge obtained from practical sessions on the school farm helps not only to reinforce what is taught in the classrooms, it also equips the pupils/students with first-hand knowledge of how to run agribusinesses, which is very important in cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit in the students.

    Our national policy on education lays considerable emphasis on self-reliance. It is no secret these days that whereas many school leavers (including university graduates) are finding it increasingly difficult to secure paid employment, those of them with technical bias easily get employed as artisans.

    Technical and pre-vocational subjects like agricultural science not only impart specialized skills, they also offer opportunities for future income generating activities and self-employment. Apart from the benefits to farmers, agriculture also supports the manufacturing industries. Agriculture provides raw materials for manufacturing industries without which the industries cannot produce. They depend on agriculture for manufacturing their products which they sell to earn income. These industries also employ many workers in the factories and earn a lot of money and so they become economically empowered.

    There are certainly many important benefits that agriculture can bring to the economy.

     

    • Daniel Ighakpe, FESTAC Town, Lagos.

  • Time to seriously get going with our agriculture

    Farm settlements manned by different people working in tandem and directly supervised by government functionaries will do a lot of good for our collective souls. Fear of hunger will knit us together

    Have I told you I do not take part in arguments, particularly useless ones? I have? Good. I’ll say it again. Argumentative encounters are usually for me worse than close encounters of the third or fourth kind. Imagine, for instance, having to prove that snails have ears. Where do you start? You can describe the species to your heart’s content or ask the garden gnome, but I doubt if you’ll leave your audience any wiser.

    I know that it would perhaps require an argument to determine just when Nigeria’s rot began: before or after the civil war. There is no doubt though that past governments in this country, before and after the civil war till now, have a great deal to answer for. One after the other, like a pack of stacked dominoes, they just could not resist falling over themselves in leading the country out of the light into the dark, dank, rank, abysmally deep woods by choosing unconsciousness.

    It soon became a case of who could do it better as the country rolled from one evil regime to the other all the while asking: who is responsible for this contradictory contraption here? On account of this, the social services so longed for have failed to make an appearance, particularly agricultural services. You guessed it, I love food.

    I still remember the years of OFN – Operation Feed the Nation and the Green Revolution of then Gen. Obasanjo when the entire nation was commanded to grow something to feed this country. I remember people responding very enthusiastically then. Many got themselves fields to plant food crops, many got ranches to grow cows and chickens on. I went out and got myself pots to grow tomatoes in. No, don’t scoff yet. My tomatoes grew but not enough to feed me (now you can scoff). And what with growing a house and children and other things, I gradually forgot about my potted tomatoes and fed instead on other people’s farms. Gradually, the nation also forgot about feeding the nation and the economy continued to suffer.

    We are told though that the Nigerian economy is growing (Ha!) by about 7.5% and I want to ask on what exactly? If we measure growth by output, then we need to count the number of times I have purchased wood (e.g. to construct a new hen house) which is nil; or cassava seedlings (e.g. to make garri) which is also nil; or palm kernel fruit (e.g. for some oil) which is again nil; and so on.

    On the other hand, if we measure the growth by input, we may stand on surer ground. For instance, I am sure that I now consume a larger amount of rice than before in proportion to my ever expanding body mass. In other words, it’s the law of demand and supply for me where rice is concerned. Interestingly, I also understand that the entire country has upped its own rice consumption too, up to about one billion Naira worth per day! Honestly, this body mass index thing is terrible; everyone is getting bigger and bigger. Could it be because we all eat more rice? And do we need to eat more rice because we are now bigger? I am confused; it’s like the age old riddle: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

    Anyway, here we are, everyone is eating rice and few are actually putting their minds to growing a few blades of it. There really should be a revolution in rice eating and growing. I think that if a law were to be enacted that whoever cannot grow rice should not eat it, things might change. And I think we should start with the children. No one eats rice more than those little tykes. And I hear many of them even have favourites too. Seriously. Many will not eat ‘rice that is not white’, or ‘rice that does not come from a bag’. That means, of course, that they turn up their pert little noses at the idea of eating ‘rice with stones’. Now, that is a to-do.

    I like to remember my growing up years. Rice actually featured very little in it since my poor ol’ grandmother only managed to lay her hands on some grains of it once or so a week. Who then could turn up a nose at the grains of sand (I swear they all looked like rice to me back then) that served the very useful purpose of increasing the substance on the plate? None. So … now what was I talking about before I digressed into the stony country of rice?

    Ah yes, we are told that bread also takes a large proportion of our foreign earnings. Now, that is sad. The truth is that food production in this country is at an incredibly low level because the government has never really encouraged those of us in it (including potted tomato growers). To really encourage us to do something more than eat and get fat, the government needs to put a few things in place.

    Farm Communes should be encouraged. I have said again and again that there is nothing more painful to the heart than to travel through the entire countryside in Nigeria and find tall grasses idling their lives away because no one has deigned to shift them. Farm settlements manned by different people working in tandem and directly supervised by government functionaries will do a lot of good for our collective souls. Fear of hunger will knit us together.

    This again depends on the completion of the revolution taking place in the banks: i.e. bank executive members would have been given complete tutorials on how not to ask for their own ten per cent cut from the loans they give out to these farmers or to seek first the increasingly sharper practices. It is clear though that without the banks, the commune system cannot work.

    The private entrepreneurs should also be encouraged to invest in the purchase of the products of these commune farmers. As it stands now, these entrepreneurs appear to be interested only in quick-yielding enterprises, not buying corn to watch for when it will change colour. I was alarmed to hear that the government is actually building and installing storage facilities to store farm produce. It would be good if the government workers were known for their ability to actually be interested in the maintenance of such projects. Experience tells us that while such facilities are new, the workers would deem them romantic but would soon lose interest, especially when their salaries are a little tardy… It is only profit-driven individuals who can maintain the nobility of these storage projects, and may be develop one or two industries along the way to consume the products.

    Then truly, something must be done about the Fulani cattle herdsmen who value their cattle far above rubies and definitely far above anybody’s crops or life. It seems that they have assumed a national culture of just lobbing off anyone who dares complain that their cattle have destroyed a farm. I have heard so many stories of how cattlemen are judge, jury, and executioner in matters concerning their cattle, exerting (human) limb for (cow) limb, eye for eye, (human) life for (cow) life. And the police look on.

    To be sure, agricultural development ensures food security which also in turn ensures national security. To ensure that development, some serious thinking that will hopefully lead to some serious action needs to be done. There are too many of us hungry ones to be rescued who cannot go beyond potted tomato-farming.

    • This was first published in 2012 before the Fulani/farmers’ clashes escalated. Yet, the issues are not resolved.

  • Kano Govt partners with BUK to boost Large-Scale Agriculture

    The Acting Governor of Kano state, Dr. Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna has urged the Centre for Drylands Agriculture (CDA), Bayero University Kano (BUK) to partner with relevant ministries and agencies of the state government in order to boost food sufficiency through the expansion of large scale farming in the state.

    Dr. Gawuna who is also the Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, in his remarks during the opening ceremony of the 3rd International Conference on Drylands organized by CDA in collaboration with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, said that moving agriculture from subsistence to large-scale commercial enterprise should be taken seriously at this point of the nation’s history.

    He, however, noted that the theme of the Conference entitled, “Resource Constraints, Conflicts and Changing Climate in the Drylands: Options for Attaining SDGs,” remained timely considering the lingering conflicts between pastoralists and farmers, which has posed serious threat to the development of agriculture in some parts of the country.

    Describing Kano as one of the agricultural cornerstone of the country, Dr. Gawuna recalled the once booming groundnut pyramid in the ancient commercial city, but regretted that the coming of oil boom almost killed agriculture which was once the mainstay of the nation’s economy.

    According to him, the state government was committed, not only to regain the lost glory of agriculture, but to also ensure partnership with centres like the CDA and other development partners, so as to attain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

    Also speaking during the event, the Vice Chancellor, BUK, Prof. Muhammad Yahuza Bello, noted that the theme of the Conference, “hs in many ways, extended the themes of the two previous conferences on drylands held in 2014 and 2016.

    “I am particularly delighted that the theme for the 2018 conference stands out in the way it challenges speakers and presenters to seek solutions or give insights into understanding the serious challenges posed by climate change, competition for natural resources and conflicts in dryland areas.”

    The Vice Chancellor added that, “I have no doubt that universities have important roles to play in helping governments and other stakeholders to implement the noble objectives of the SDGs by sharing their knowledge and experiences.”

    In his welcome address, CDA Director, Prof. Jibrin M. Jibrin, decried what he described as serious shortage of skilled manpower in sub-Saharan Africa, saying that it has continued to retard the development of agricultural technology in the region.

    According to him, the biennial international conference on drylands is one of the programmes of the CDA that provides a platform for dissemination of research findings, networking and sharing of experiences between scientists, practitioners and other stakeholders.

    He said the theme of the Conference was timely, “because attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the drylands requires concerted efforts towards addressing myriads of problems related to climate change, high population pressure, and unsustainable land use practices. These are the underlining issues that lead to further degradation of land, low agricultural productivity, food and nutrition insecurity, severe poverty, conflicts and civil unrest.”

    The Speakers in the Conference include Dr. Peter Craufurd, Strategic Research Team Leader for Sustainable Intensification in Africa at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT); Bernard Vanlauwe, IITA, Kenya; Mr. Suffyan Koroma, FAO Representative to Nigeria; Raffaello Cervini, Lead Environmental Economist with the World Bank’s Environmental and Natural Resources Global Practice.

  • Agriculture: CDA Director decries shortage of manpower in Africa

    The Director, Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA), Bayero University, Kano (BUK), Prof. Jibrin Jibrin on Wednesday in Kano decried what he described as serious shortage of skilled manpower in sub-Saharan Africa, saying that it has continued to retard the development of agricultural technology in the region.

    Professor Jibrin stated this in BUK while briefing reporters on activities lined up for the third International Conference on Drylands to be hosted by CDA between September 24 and 27, 2018 in BUK.

    According to him, the biennial international conference on drylands is one of the programmes of the CDA that provides a platform for dissemination of research findings, networking and sharing of experiences between scientists, practitioners and other stakeholders.

    He said the theme of the Conference: “Resource Constraints, Conflicts and Changing Climate in the Drylands: Options for Attaining SDGs,” remains apt, “because attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the drylands requires concerted efforts towards addressing myriads of problems related to climate change, high population pressure, and unsustainable land use practices.”

    “These are the underlining issues that lead to further degradation of land, low agricultural productivity, food and nutrition insecurity, severe poverty, conflicts and civil unrests.”

    Jubrin added that part of issues to be discussed at the Conference include Crops and animal improvement for adaptation to climate change; crop-livestock integration for improved income and food security; integrated soil fertility management in a changing environment; range land and pasture development: the future of pastoralism in sub-Saharan Africa; ecosystem, water use and conflicts; application of decision support systems in dryland resource management; millennial and agripreneureship for sustained economic growth; and agricultural financing and politics for sustainable development.

    He further stated that, “this year’s conference will bring together scientists, farmers, policy makers, civil society organizations and the private sector from across the globe to examine how the SDGs would be attained in the drylands in the face of resource scarcity, climate change and emerging conflicts.”

    “The Conference will examine how public policies, research and development programmes will contribute in ensuring food security and attainment of the SDGs. There will also be about 70 paper presentations, a special session on the project ‘Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA).”

    Among those who are expected to speak at the Conference include Dr. Peter Craufurd, Strategic Research Team Leader for Sustainable Intensification in Africa at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT); Bernard Vanlauwe, IITA, Kenya; Mr. Suffyan Koroma, FAO Representative to Nigeria; Raffaello Cervini, Lead Environmental Economist with the World Bank’s Environmental and Natural Resources Global Practice.