The Nation Newspaper

Tag: maize

  • Farmers decry imported maize glut

    Farmers decry imported maize glut

    Farmers  have urged the government to come up with  a mechanism for monitoring maize imports to avoid a glut.

    In an interview, the Lagos Chairman, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Otunba Femi Oke, warned that millers and cartels were likely to take advantage of the import window, which has resulted in a drop in local maize prices.

    According to him, unchecked maize import remains a threat to local production. As much as the government wants to support producers by making available the grain, it is important to protect local farmers, he added.

    His worry is that the glut in the market may continue, which will result in millers and poultry producers buying the grain at a throw-away price to the detriment of local maize farmers.

    The imported one will create problems for maize producers, many of whom have high stocks, he said. Oke added that farmers would incur huge losses with the continued importation of cheap maize.

    According to him, if the Federal Government does not act fast, the   maize  market will be lost to importers, whose activities may affect local producers, jobs and the economy.

    He was optimistic that the cost of local maize would fall, if the governments offered incentives to farmers to augment their production costs.

    Some stakeholders agreed with Oke, saying the price of imported maize was lower because the government of the importing countries provided support to their farmers.

    But poultry farmers have blamed farmers for the scarcity of maize in the market.

    The Group Head, Policy and Strategy, Amo Farm Sieberer Hatchery Limited, Mr. Toromade Francis, said local farmers didn’t have the desire to produce more as there was no market for their produce.

    He said this had pushed poultry farmers to import grains, such as soya beans and maize for feed production.

    “Since 2011, the least we have imported (maize) is 200,000 metric tonnes. Even this year, about 300,000MT was projected for importation because of the gap between demand and local production.”

    He noted that imported grains were cheaper at N104,000 per tonne than the local grains which went for N130,000 per tonne, because of the yield.

    “The yield per hectare in Nigeria is about three or four tonnes while the imported ones yield up to 10 tonnes per hectare. In addition to this, cost of funds is low outside Nigeria,” he said.

    The General Manager, Operations, Amo Farms, Mr. Emmanuel Olorun-toba, decried maize and soya beans export to other countries after every harvest season, amid increased demand and high prices of grains .

    At a briefing on the NatnuPreneur Broiler Out-grower scheme in Lagos, Oloruntoba said: “We are in a situation where we don’t have enough maize and yet during the harvest season, maize is exported.

    “I remember vividly last harvest season, an average of 500,000 tonnes of maize left Nigeria to neighbouring countries while we barely had enough to take care of our needs.”

    Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) Chairman Dr. Ayoola Oduntan said the scarcity of grains in the local market, has escalated the price of feed. Feed constitutes over 70 per cent of operations’ cost.

    He said the high cost contributed to the high prices of eggs and chicken in the local market.

    He said the cost of feed increased by over 100 per cent from about N60,000 per tonne to about N130,000 between 2014 and 2017, resulting in increase in the price of eggs from N20 to N50 and chicken from N450 per kilogramme to about N1, 200 per kg.

  • Maize, Soy production get support

    As part of efforts to improve the productivity of Maize and Soy farmers in Nigeria, West African Soy Industries Limited (WASIL) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Business Innovation Facility (BIF). WASIL is a member of WACOT/TGI Group.

    While the TGI Group with Rahul Savara as Group Managing Director, is an international investment and holding company with diversified interests and investments in Nigeria, Ghana, Republic of Benin, Morocco, UAE, South Africa and China, among other emerging markets, the Business Innovation Facility (BIF) is a five-year (2014 – 2019) DFID-funded market systems development programme that aims to improve the lives of the poor in three countries: Malawi, Myanmar and Nigeria.

    BIF works to identify and address constraints in selected markets, providing technical assistance (and some grant funding) to businesses and other market players.

    According to the General Manager, Corporate Affairs of TGI Group, Mr. Sadiq Kassim, “WASIL is currently working with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development and the Central Bank of Nigeria under the Food Security Programmeof the Federal Government to improve the productivity of maize and soy farmers in a replicable manner.

  • Maize malady

    Well, you heard about tomato Ebola and grain weevils attack; but this is not another kind of crop disease or farm pestilence. Not at this thick of the rainy season when maize is ripening all across the country. It is indeed that time of the year when we suffer a form of ‘maize malady’.

    You know that time of the year when every street corner you turned, you are confronted by corn on the cob – roasted, boiled or even the corn-beans porridge collabo! The one that has been adjudged the most balanced tropical diet! The one that makes you drink water like a camel many hours after consuming it!

    But that is not the maize madness that catches Hardball’s fancy here; it is the madness of a different kind, a national malady that makes a country import all the things it can produce and export all the things it can refine.

    It is a madness that is symptomatic of a slothful people who lack rigour, who lack a sense of process and live out on a daily basis, an illusion of grandeur. Corn madness is the story of a country devoid of leadership capacity to drive her people to harness her rich, God-given resources for the good of all. It is the madness of a people who living in a vast arable territory of the universe and should be feeding the world but rather depend on everyone else (even arid countries) for the most basic staple food.

    Maize madness is about a report in national dailies last week that Nigeria imported about N6 billion worth of maize in the last two months of April and May, 2017. It is an action so preposterous it borders on madness of national propensity. It is such an obfuscating phenom that every being in such a country deserves twelve strokes of the cane starting from number one to the last person.

    Considering that we are in the rainy season when corn grows with little effort and less costs and can mature for harvesting in 90 days, importers of N6b worth of maize could have gotten twice the quantity of maize they needed at half that cost if they had tilled Nigerian land in February/March this year.

    Imagine    the thousands of jobs that would have been created; the know-how that would have been infused in the value-chain. The economics of scale of a multi-billion domestic maize production project; the huge foreign exchange saved including  passed-on costs like freighting, packaging for export and port handlings.

    It may interest you to know that apart from maize madness, there are other maladies like palm oil madness, rice madness, poultry madness, milk madness and even petroleum products madness.

    Some drastic cure required please!

  • Edo Govt registers 50,000 farmers for CBN loan

    Edo Govt registers 50,000 farmers for CBN loan

    The Edo Government has screened and registered no fewer than 50,000 farmers for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) loan in the 2016 cropping season.

    Mr Abubakar Sule, Edo North Zonal Manager, Edo Agricultural Development Programme (EADP), made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Auchi on Friday.

    Sule said that of the 50,000 farmers, 25,000 were from Edo South, 10,000, Edo Central, while 15,000 were from Edo North.

    He said the CBN loan was being facilitated by the state government, adding that the individual farmers needed to belong to a cooperative society to be a beneficiary.

    He said that farmers, who grow Maize, Rice, Cassava, Oil Palm and livestock farmers such as poultry, piggery and fishery would benefit from the facility.

    Sule said that the gesture was the state government’s way of assisting farmers to boost the cultivation of food production in the state.

    He said the state government had trained its extension service workers on how to guide the farmers to reduce risk and enhance farm yields.

    He said that EADP would ensure that farmers had access to variety of seeds and other high yielding inputs to enhance production.

  • ADP raises alarm on maize pests

    • Govt, others to combat disease

    The Federal Government and the research community have  stepped up efforts to contain a maize disease threatening food security.

    Ogun State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) had reported cases of pests ravaging maize farms to the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (I.A.R&T), Ibadan, Oyo State.

    I.A.R&T is the zonal coordinating research institute saddled with maize development in the Southwest.

    Speaking on the initiative, I.A.R&T Executive Director Prof James Alabi Adediran said maize farms in the Southwest have been   attacked by an insect known as “army worm.”

    Containing its spread and impact, he noted, has become critical since maize is an important food crop. The national requirement for maize is estimated at about 16 million tonnes with production around 10.3 million, leaving a deficit or shortfall of about 5.7 million tonnes.

    Out of this, the livestock industry consumes more than half of the total annual maize production.

    He said it was important that the industry benefits from effective interventions as it affects the livelihood of about 80 per cent of the population depending on agriculture.

    Consequently, he said the institute constituted a team to ascertain the type of pest, estimate the extent of damage and proffer a practical solution.

    The team consisted experts such as entomologist, extensionist, economist, plant breeder, seed scientist, pathologist among others.

    Findings revealed that the pest was not restricted to the Southwest ecology alone but had caused damage as far as Niger and Rivers states.

    The solutions proffered at the stakeholders forum included affordable  products that can destroy the  disease and good agronomic practices  that farmers  have to follow  to prevent occurence.

    The forum attracted the management team of the institute, scientists, representative of the regional director of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, extension officers from various ADPs, agro-input dealers, Zonal Coordinator of Southwest Agricultural Extension Research and Liaison Services, maize farmers and processors, among others. The measures, so far, have prevented the looming maize scarcity and returned farmers back to the farm.

  • Farmers push for maize importation ban

    Farmers push for maize importation ban

    The National President, Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN), Pastor Tunji Adenola, has urged the Federal Government to ban the importation of maize into the country in order to support its local production.

    He said local farmers can produce maize that will satisfy the needs of the country  and also serve as raw materials for industries, if properly supported by the government.

    In a statement issued after the association’s annual general meeting (AGM), in Abuja yesterday, he said farmers are willing to produce more maize if the government can ban the importation of maize into the country thereby creating a market for them to sell their products.

    He said: “One of the greatest problem that needs to be overcome is that importation of maize must be stopped if not,  we will be using our foreign exchange which is scarce now to satisfy other countries when we know that Nigeria can provide all the seeds needed in the country.

    “The farmers are willing to produce because the market will be there, we will be able to meet the national requirements.

    “We are going to engage the government and stress the need there is need to close our borders to these porous leakages of maize into the country.

    “What the government needs to do is to guarantee us the market that they will allow us to sell our products. What is important is that what the farmer produces is able to sell it.”

    He also urged the government to make credit facilities available to their members which will go a long way to ensure that they meet up with the quantity of maize needed in the country.

    “If the government policy on credit facilities is kept alive, then the support of finance will be a big advantage for farmers to produce. Not total, just give us a little and I can assure you that we won’t need to import maize into Nigeria again,” he added.

  • Shocking!

    •That Nigeria imported N31b worth of maize in six years is simply disgusting

    It must signpost a total lack of strategic economic intelligence that Nigeria still imports certain agricultural products and their derivatives which she ought to be ‘feeding’ the world with. By the same token, it must be shocking to many Nigerians that this country still imports maize from the United States; she imports starch which is a derivative of cassava and she imports palm oil as well. That Nigeria imports these commodities in this age can only be a pointer to a failure of governance.

    Corn for instance, is a crop that flourishes in nearly all parts of Nigeria. With proper water management, it has a 90-day cycle which means that four harvests are possible in one year. Anyone who has ever planted corn knows it is not only among the highest yielding, it is also one of the easiest crops to maintain, preserve and process into numerous consumer and industrial by-products. The same applies to cassava which though has a longer cycle of about nine months, thrives nearly everywhere; yields massively and has nearly a dozen derivatives.

    On these two crops alone, a serious government can galvanize a massive agro-industrial economy. But it is with utter shock that we received statistics from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) which shows that Nigeria imported about 900,000 metric tons of maize valued at about N31 billion from the US in the last six years.

    The imports are mainly for industrial uses, particularly by commercial feed millers and the production of flour, malt, cornflakes, beer, starch, among others. Though with an annual production of about seven million metric tons, Nigeria is acclaimed to be the largest producer of maize in Africa but her harvests are plagued by yield losses, poor preservation and unstructured markets. Maize imports had been banned in Nigeria since 2005 but the ban was said to have been lifted because of shortfall in production.

    We are the more disturbed by this ‘revelation’ in view of the claims by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, of far-reaching achievements in agriculture under this administration. According to recent literature from MARD, “For the first time, a database of 10.5 million farmers was developed to facilitate efficient delivery of agro-inputs.” Records from the ministry show that farmers in the country redeemed 67,991 metric tons of maize seeds valued at N42.673 billion in the last three years.

    MARD noted further that as part of a scheme it termed Growth Enhancement Support (GES), an e-wallet was launched for farmers to receive subsidised inputs via electronic voucher delivered to their cell phones. Dr. Adesina stated that as a result of the e-wallet scheme, national food production increased by 21 million metric tons between 2011 and 2014, surpassing the 2015 target of 20 million metric tons.

    We wonder how a government making such unprecedented marks in agricultural production would turn around to lift the ban on a basic, easy to cultivate staple such as maize. It is our opinion that certain commodities like maize, cassava and palm oil products should never be imported into Nigeria in this age. Major industrial users of crops like maize and cassava should be encouraged to embark on a backward integration scheme that would involve communities of growers, primary processors and suppliers. This system will help in developing viable value chains both for farmers and industrial users.

    Now that crude oil prices have crashed and there is a dire need to diversify the economy, we suggest that the government should ban importation of maize into the country immediately.

  • Rice, maize, others contribute N778b to revenue

    Rice, maize, others contribute N778b to revenue

    Nigeria realised N778 billion as revenue from five crops under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda, the Federal Government has said.

    It listed the crops as maize, rice, cassava, sorghum and soya bean. The ATA was inaugurated in 2012 by President Goodluck Jonathan.

    The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, broke the news in Abuja during a public affairs forum organized by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs.

    He said the country made N259 billion from the production of maize, N407 billion from rice, N94 billion from cassava, N5 billion  from sorghum and N13 billion from soya bean.

    Adesina said the government was able to put an end to 40 years of corruption in the fertilizer sector.

    This, he said, was a development that impacted positively in the production of various agricultural crops.

    Dr. Adesina said: “The old system of government direct procurement and distribution of fertilizer was corrupt. Between 1980 and 2010, over N873bn ($5.4bn) was spent on fertilizer subsidies. No more than 11 per cent of farmers received these fertilizers.

    “Over N776bn ($4.8bn) was estimated to have been lost to corruption or an average of N26bn ($162.5m) annually. The system displaced the private sector and Nigerian farmers lost dignity.”

    He said the government built a national database of 10.5 million farmers with participation in every state of the federation.

    Adesina observed that the Growth Enhancement Scheme initiative for Nigerian farmers had increased the number of farmers who get fertilizers from 11 per cent before the programme to 92 per cent.

    “1.3 million metric tons of fertilizer has been delivered to farmers. 55,000 metric tons of improved seeds have been delivered to farmers. Nigeria is the first in Africa to deliver inputs to farmers in a large scale through e-wallet.

    “Also, food imports declined by 38 per cent from N1.1tn in 2009 to N635bn in 2013,” he added.

  • Orange maize improves vitamin A in children, new study shows

    Just ahead of World Food Day, a study published in the ‘American Journal of Clinical Nutrition’ has established that ‘orange’ vitamin A maize increases vitamin A storage in the body. This maize has been conventionally bred (non-genetically modified organism (GMO) to have higher levels of beta-carotene, a naturally occurring plant pigment that the body then converts into vitamin A. Lack of sufficient vitamin A blinds up to 500,000 children annually and increases the risk of death from disease (such as diarrhea in children).

    Vitamin A deficiency is widely prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Foods that are good sources of vitamin A, such as orange fruits, dark leafy vegetables, or meat, are not always available, or may be too expensive in some regions. In many African countries, people eat large amounts of staple foods like cassava or maize. For example, in Zambia, people eat up to a pound of white maize daily. However, this white maize provides no beta-carotene. Switching to orange maize, which is rich in beta-carotene, could potentially provide maize-dependent populations with up to half their daily vitamin A needs.

    In this controlled efficacy study, children from the Eastern Province of Zambia were randomly assigned to three feeding groups and received either white maize, orange maize, or a daily vitamin A supplement. After three months, both groups that received either the orange maize or vitamin A supplements showed significant increases in their total body stores of vitamin A, with no changes observed in the group that received white maize.

    Lead scientist Sherry Tanumihardjo said “we were surprised to find that most of the children in this study already had substantial stores of vitamin A. We attribute this to the success of fortifying sugar with vitamin A, the provision of vitamin A supplements to young children, and perhaps better diets. Yet, despite having adequate vitamin A stores, we still saw this store increase in children as a result of eating the orange maize. So, I’m confident that orange maize would be especially effective in increasing body stores of vitamin A in populations suffering from vitamin A deficiency.”

    Unlike the form of vitamin A found in supplements and fortified foods, the body regulates conversion of beta-carotene into vitamin A, and consuming high levels of beta-carotene is not harmful to health. Several orange maize varieties have been released by the governments of Zambia and Nigeria. In Zambia, HarvestPlus has provided orange maize to more than 10,000 farming households and is now working with the private sector with the goal of reaching 100,000 famers by 2015.

    According to Eliab Simpungwe, HarvestPlus Country Manager for Zambia, “the orange maize has been embraced by consumers once they have had a chance to taste it. When they also understand the benefits of vitamin A in the diets they are all the more enthusiastic about orange maize.” The orange maize varieties released are also high yielding, disease and virus resistant, and drought tolerant.

    The Zambian Government has officially recognised biofortification, which it includes in the National Food and Nutrition Strategic Plan for Zambia 2011-2015. Musonda Mofu, Acting Executive Director of the National Food and Nutrition Commission in Zambia and who was also on the study team, said “there are still many pockets where vitamin A deficiency remains a problem in Zambia. Food-based approaches such as orange maize can provide people—especially women and children—with a good portion of their daily vitamin A needs through nshima or other traditional foods made from maize, that we Zambians eat every day. For us, this is cost-effective and a safe approach to improving nutrition.”

    HarvestPlus and its partners have developed and disseminated other conventionally bred crops to provide needed vitamins and minerals in the diet. These are vitamin A cassava (Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria), vitamin A orange sweet potato (throughout Sub-Saharan Africa) and iron beans (Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Uganda). Zinc wheat and rice and iron pearl millet have been targeted to South Asia.