Tag: Nigerians

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.”