How can agriculture aid economic growth? It is by structural transformation of the sector, says Prof Damian Chikwendu, National Coordinator of West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP) Nigeria, in this interview with DANIEL ESSIET.
Nigerians are calling for economic and structural change through agriculture. How can this be achieved?
Sustained economic growth using agriculture cannot happen without structural transformation of the sector. This requires broadening production from small to medium scale. It means upgrading the processes, enhancing farm produce and raising agric productivity. In the past, we have had little successes in improving agriculture because farming is practiced in subsistence level. For us to achieve high economic growth, it will be powered by a structural transformation of the farming sector, with incentives and measures that encourage farmers to take agriculture as a business. In this instance, several aspects have to come together, including promoting agro businesses, to move from producing low value commodities to high value industrial products.
With this, agriculture can now be harnessed with other sectors of the economy to promote sustained growth and structural transformation for increased employment. So, changing the perspective of farmers to approach farming as a business will create profound change in their mentality. The goal of training farmers as business people will not only be to contribute to food and income security, but also to put more money into their pockets. The new direction, which WAAPP is championing, is to train farmers to see agriculture as a sustainable business and to make the shift from subsistence farming to farming for profit.
Financing and poor infrastructure are some the challenges facing agriculture. How can this be addressed to support the increasing number of investors?
We are facing a situation where budgets are becoming tighter for the government to fund infrastructure. At the same time, I believe the government can still address the issue both through prudent capital projects spending and public–private partnerships (PPPs). PPPs are useful for financing agricultural infrastructure, such as irrigation schemes or storage facilities, or providing services that will benefit smallholder farmers. If we are to bring life into the economy, a lot of funding have to be deployed to fast-track new agricultural infrastructure.
We need infrastructure to stimulate and transform a lot of promising agricultural ideas and businesses into profitable commercial investments. Where the necessary agricultural systems and facilities are lacking, you see a situation where it will take a long time for new agric businesses to take off not to talk about becoming profitable. Agriculture is crucial if we are to achieve inclusive economic growth. To achieve this, infrastructure investment is important. What we need is a committed leadership to drive a development plan with the target to transform the local economy to be agric sector dependent in the face of dwindling oil revenue.
After decades of neglect, how can the sector be fixed to work with the small-scale operators?
Clearly, the factors that drive transformation in agriculture are the adoption of technology and access to finance and skills training which we are currently delivering to small farmers. We are working to scale up small farming to increase efficiency at the farm level. The feedback we are getting from supply-chain based interventions in terms of improved food production clearly shows that small-scale farming can be a viable business.
How will you describe the state of agriculture?
I will say that agriculture has been recognised as capable of driving economic change and innovation while at the same time expanding opportunities for job creation. Right now, the government through the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) sees farmers as crucial to building the economy to deliver opportunity to all, central to innovation, wealth creation, and job growth, as well as to political stability. Unfortunately, obstacles in the business environment hinder such opportunities. Farmers face challenges with regard to capacity, financing, and market access. It is cheery that experts, policymakers, and entrepreneurs have now turned their attention toward building the agric sector. This attention reflects recognition of the need for multifaceted support to drive food production. I believe agro-food products raise the chance for greater success. Also, agriculture means opportunities for processed and packaged foods. This is the time to encourage local farmers and businesses to boost their competitiveness, which is healthy for a nation. That’s why there is all the more room for opportunities in the agro-food sector. The competitiveness of the agro-food sector, and the variety it offers, also makes our produce coveted by international consumers.
You have sponsored research in diverse crop varieties in an effort to create a resilient food system. Can you recommend any agribusiness that will be profitable and most beneficial in Nigeria?
There are tremendous opportunities in crop and livestock sectors where Nigerians can invest and reap economic benefits. With the studies we have done, I believe Nigerians can invest in the crop and the returns will be enough for them to make money and livelihood. Crops such as cassava, rice, mango, sorghum have vast potential for higher return on investment. There is potential in poultry production. The poultry sector is witnessing a surge of investment, driven by both stronger demand for the end product and the good paybacks. There are still significant opportunities for more Nigerians to invest in poultry production. As you are aware, WAAPP, in collaboration with the Zaria-based National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI), and some six private hatcheries decided to popularise and introduce to the Nigerian poultry farmer the “Shika-Brown parent Stock”, a new species of poultry that can lay eggs for two years consecutively. The specie, is an indigenous innovation resulting from years of intensive research efforts was first released by NAPRI but remained largely on the shelf ever since due to lack of funds to propagate the innovation. We want to see farmers and Nigerians invest in the production of Shika-Brown day old chicks because it is profitable. There is market demand for poultry products nationwide. We want to work with private hatcheries to ensure the success of the Shika-Brown project. The release of the Shika-Brown specie is one of our major achievements.
Why WAAPP when there are other programmes?
I think members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) believe the region is the right arena for a new agricultural development strategy and support. There are strong complementarities between areas of production and consumption and the ecological diversity. As economies and trade become increasingly globalized, regional integration is seen as a key vector for positioning the region on the world stage. WAAPP is intended to address the many challenges to regional agriculture. it has also become increasingly important to put agriculture back at the heart of the development agenda and promoting agriculture requires funding and WAAPP is key to actualising the regional vision and making it effective in a context where institutional, human and financial resources are in short supply. WAAPP Nigeria’s targeted support for researchers and producers is absolutely crucial. There is need for access to fertiliser and seed, plus better training so that the farmers can consolidate their holdings. In other words, peasants must be transformed into entrepreneurs.
Why are you supporting research institutes, universities and Federal Colleges of Agriculture to reach farmers?
In WAAPP, we believe it is important we support farmers to produce more food, plough new and marginal lands more rapidly. This can only be achieved if agricultural research is funded to help raise crop yields sustainably – getting more crops per hectare of land.
What specific research gaps can WAAPP fill by allocating funds to research institutions?
We support universities, research institutes and colleges of agriculture to focus on the needs of farmers, different crops, different diseases and different problems accessing markets. Our partners address challenges relating to food insecurity and rural poverty. We are putting science to work in boosting food production through our partnering research institutions. There are some good universities that have special programmes to address our focus areas. They have trained lots of good scientists, researchers and scale is considerable. We need to support these institutions to train more Nigerians in good farming practice and technology.
Why is WAAPP seeking to restructure the Agricultural Research Council?
We are doing this because we want to see a situation where the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) can be transformed into a more efficient and functional body capable of driving agricultural development in Nigeria. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development are leading a study that will develop relevant documents aimed at restructuring ARCN. Even though the ARCN was established in 2006 with the mandate of coordinating, supervising and regulating agricultural research, training and extension in the fifteen National Agricultural Research Institutes (NARIs) and 11 Federal Colleges of Agriculture, there is so much inefficiency within the structure that not is helping it to manage the research institutes to be able to respond to government’s demands for cost-effective management and generation of appropriate technologies, agricultural growth and the individual needs of the rural poor.
In India, we observed a strong link between the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the National Agricultural Research System (NARS). The NARS, which comprises of 30 research institutes, 60 project Directorates, 78 Indian Coordinated Research Projects, 61 States Agricultural Universities, 6 Deemed Universities and Agricultural Faculties in many traditional universities, are under the coordination and supervision of ICAR in terms of funding of research activities. In China, funding of research is heavily dependent on government, although institutes are made to access funds for research projects through competitive research grant scheme. From Brazil, the EMPRAPA model could be domesticated to an extent in Nigeria.
How can research institutes be improved on for better efficiency?
When ARCN was established in 2006, it was given the statutory mandate of coordinating, supervising and regulating agricultural research, training and extension in all 15 National Agricultural Research Institutes (NARIs) and 11 Federal Colleges of Agriculture (FCA) across the country. From all practical indications, the National Agricultural Research System (NARS), which is primed on coordination, is not working well for Nigeria. It is not responding to the government’s demand for cost-effective management, generation of appropriate technologies, agricultural growth and the individual needs of the rural poor. WAAPP has taken the lead by providing insight to the government of Nigeria and experts on the best approach that could make agricultural researches relevant to the farmer, and most importantly to the consumer.
To make ARCN really work, it must be transformed from a coordinating to a managing council. A situation whereby the council has a board that is completely separated in operations from that of the research institutes creates vacuum that is the reason most researches are not useful in Nigeria. Brazil, India and China are countries that Nigeria must learn from in this regards. I must tell you the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, sponsored by WAAPP, undertook study trips to Brazil, India and China where the team of experts and researchers took time to study how the Indian example could be replicated in Nigeria. The objective of the study tours was to understand the organisation of agricultural research systems in the countries with a view to transforming ARCN into a more efficient and functional body capable of driving agricultural development in Nigeria. In India, we visited the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) in New Delhi, the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa, the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) in Gurgaon and other similar institutions. In China, we visited the CAAS facilities including the Gene Bank in Beijing, while in Brazil we visited the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMBRAPA), Headquarters, Ministry of Agrarian Development among other research locations. We are trying new models to link small farmers to inputs and markets to transform the economy. Models to scale up small scale farming and increase efficiency at the farm level have begun to emerge.
Are you making any effort to promote commercialisation of research products?
We have realised that most researchers do researches for promotion. This is the reason some research institutes are not even known by the people in the community they are domiciled. Because of this WAAPP has set a benchmark that ensures that the institutes must find a way of being relevant, first to their immediate environment. So they are made to adopt at least two communities. A situation where technologies are developed and remain on the shelf for several years without being adopted by farmers may not arise because of the processes involved in technology development and testing. WAAPP already is working with the Federal Institute for Industrial Research, Oshodi (FIIRO), Lagos towards the development and commercialisation of research outcomes.
It appears you are taking small scale farmers seriously?
The entire agricultural system is dominated by small farmers. They account for 90 per cent of the sector. Given this fact, our focus is mostly on this group of farmers. By supporting small farmers, we believe we’ll be supporting most of the agricultural system, by extension the largest component of the economy. So, WAAPP work is focused mostly on identifying the bottleneck constraining the development of smallholder farmers and as a result, contributing to the overall economic growth of the country.
Are there any concrete results or impact of WAAPP work so far?
We work with a number of research institutes, universities and colleges of agriculture to maximise the contribution of quality farming to reduce the yield gap and drive an agricultural development agenda. Through our support, small scale farmers with little financial means are able to access good seeds, buy inputs, which makes it possible for them to make money and improve their investment in fertiliser, seeds, and labour. Through adopted villages, experts from research institutes, universities and Federal Colleges of Agriculture (FCA) offer expertise to address farmers’ problems within such localities. We work with scientists to identify the systemic bottlenecks within key parts of the agricultural sector. In order to determine these bottlenecks, it’s critically important for us to have access to strong research and strong data, which we are achieving now. At the systemic level, as I said before, WAAPP has had a number of interventions that we believe will increase the productivity of farmers in the near and long term. A few examples of those include the production and distribution of certified seeds. That change, now, more accurately reflects the reality on the ground as well as the future we’d like to see. We have collaborated with a number of institutions on using satellite technology and remote sensing and addressing the issues of soil fertility and soil information.
Can you say something more on innovation platforms?
An innovation platform consist of various groups, including farmers, agro dealers, transporters and others with interest in agriculture to pursue a common goal. The broad aim is to find best approaches to adding values to the supply chains of crops like yam, cassava, rice, maize, mango and aquaculture, being their focal crops. The innovation platform holds a lot of promises for agricultural development in Nigeria, as it would add value to agro products and their strings of value chains. We are working with Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs) across the country. They will nurture the programme and also use it to gain experience, in which case they are kept busy. As you may have observed this there is a greater demand not only for demonstrating the actual impacts of research but also for maximising impacts through targeting research benefits to poor people. Nigeria has the potential to establish a vibrant and profitable agricultural sector. A range of private and public efforts have demonstrated strong potential and that growing markets can be unlocked. A lot of information is shared to support the collection, storage, processing, retrieval and dissemination of information on commodity markets. Large processors have been able to negotiate with empowered producers on issues of prices, bulking points and access to other services. This has increased the trust and relationship between the different actors.
I believe innovation platforms can lead to renewed economic growth and sustained competitiveness. Such networks can be presented as prescriptions for rural economic recovery. Such initiatives should be replicated across the country if the nation is to reduce poverty and improve food security and advance good governance, peace and security. With innovation platforms, farmers will be linked with buyers, input suppliers, credit, and access to training and technical assistance. The farmers will receive training and technical assistance from extension officers on demonstration plots. Key practices include soil and water conservation, weed control, crop nutrition, and better postharvest handling techniques. In turn, benefitting farmers will provide training to other farmers around their demonstration plots. We are determined to provide farmers with the skills they need to both improve their own productivity and teach others to do the same.
Through our innovation platforms, we are looking at the key crops that farmers are growing for food security. These include cassava, sorghum, rice, maize and yam; in each of these we’ve identified with specific research institutes and clusters where these crops are prominent. And we are working with research institutes, universities and FCAs to strengthen extensions workers – to ensure that they provide farmers with the most appropriate agronomic practices, and at the same time provide farmers with seed and fertiliser on time as well as mechanisation and markets. So the combinations of these are interventions that we’re bringing to farmers in the near term. So far, we have recorded successes where farmers have begun to plant drought resistant crops, diversify away from planting just one or two crops which are very vulnerable to climate change. We have seen some successes, but definitely more needs to be done. The varieties the research institutes have developed have great potential to improve resilience against, drought. The new varieties can enhance nutrition through breeding to increase nutrition.
One issue that you have always raised is that of the absence of a functional extension system. Can you comment on it?
Like I have always observed, lack of effective extension services is a major challenge to small scale agriculture commercialisation. The existing extension services are poorly resourced and key messages do not filter down to the rural small scale farmers who need them most. Without a basic understanding of good agricultural practices, most small scale farmers cannot grow sufficient crops to move past subsistence farming. A lot of blames are placed on the door steps of ADPs which is not entirely correct. The ADPs do a lot of things besides providing extension services. Besides, there is the issue of proper funding. Having identified this, we have decided to support a reform of the extension system in such a way that ADPs can be repositioned to promote farmer driven approach. Under this approach, the extension officers will be trained in modern practices and methods that would help farmers to adopt good agricultural and business practices. The benefitting farmers will then share the knowledge within their communities. We are working with research institutes, colleges of agriculture and universities to organise programmes to teach farmers using demonstration plots.
