The Nation Newspaper

Tag: value chain

  • Boosting farmers’ income through value chain

    Boosting farmers’ income through value chain

    The Federal Government has embraced value-chain development (VCD) to stimulate growth, promote agric and combat rural poverty. One of the agencies promoting it is the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Ilorin, Kwara State. The institute is deploying VCD to empower rural people and  increase food security. DANIEL ESSIET reports.

    For years, life has been a  struggle for many rural farmers in some parts.

    To them, building a better life on the farm takes energy, hard work and commitment. Despite this, their crops wither under severe drought and other circumstances, the fields produce poor yields, the result is  meagre stocks at the end of the season.

    They attribute this to inefficient technologies, poor access to credit and poor marketing strategies.

    To them, the sector has suffered from weak food production, an unfavourable weather, and significant poverty. The outcome is a vicious cycle for farmers, which jeopardises  food security.

    So, how can farmers break out of this cycle?

    In August 2012, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) provided $74.5million loan to the Federal Government to help improve food security and incomes of smallholder farmers through a Value Chain Development (VCD) Programme.

    Expectedly,VCD Programme  falls  in line with the government’s vision for agricultural development, which focuses on strengthening farmers’ capacity to take advantage of market opportunities and overcome constraints along the value chain. The loan agreement for the programme was signed in Abuja.

    More than 200,000 poor rural households have benefitted from the programme, with a particular focus on women and young people.

    Since then IFAD has financed some programmes and projects in the country, benefitting more than one million rural households.

    Equally, the Federal Government has made the development of the value chain one of the spear points of its  rural empowerment strategy.

    One agency at the vanquard of promoting value chain agriculture is the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Ilorin, Kwara State. For them, a productivity-led growth  in the sector is key to new employment opportunities, higher incomes, and a brighter future in rural areas.

    This gave birth to its Commodity Value Chain Development Programme, (CVCDP) programme to promote economic growth and employment, through an integrated agro training programme for small farmers micro and small enterprises.

    In addition, ARMTI has launched the first-ever National Association of Agricultural Commodity Value Chain Development (VCD) facilitators in the country.

    Inaugurating the facilitators in Abuja, Minister of Agriculture & Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, reiterated the government’s readiness to implement measures to reduce productivity constraints for crops and other farm activities.

    Represented by the  Deputy Director (Engineering & Mechanisation,  Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development, Abdullahi Garba Abubakar, an engineer, Ogbeh said the government will continue to create long-term and sustainable small farmer livelihood opportunities in rural areas through agribusiness ventures.

    Earlier this year, during the launch of the Green Alternative Policy,  Ogbeh  had reiterated  that strengthening the food value chain was one of the most important ways to foster rural-urban development.

    One of the major priorities of the policy, the Minister said, is to accelerate sectoral restructuring in the direction of increased value and sustainable development.

    According to him,  development of food supply chains would help increase farmer’s income and promote rural development.

    He said the government was  determined to build agri-value system in collaboration with private players, urging the producers, manufacturers, and agro businesses  to  come forward and partner with it in the quest to build a value chain system.

    ARMTI ‘s Acting Executive Director, Dr Olufemi Oladunni, said CVCDP started in 2012 when the institute undertook a nationwide baseline study on selected agricultural commodity value chains and organised a National Seminar in Abuja for relevant stakeholders to brainstorm on the subject.

    “To further deepen the impact of the programme, the institute had envisioned and identified a gap that needed to be properly blocked, and had proactively taken the initiative to do so. That is the matter of trained manpower to manage the gains of the value chain programme nationwide.”

    According to him, identifying the need to develop a crop of seasoned commodity value chain facilitators for the nation informed the application and securing of approval from the Federal Government to carry out a National Training of Trainers (TOT) for Agricultural Value Chain Development Facilitators as one of the capital projects for execution by ARMTI in 2013.

    TheTOT, after its completion aimed at spreading the messages of the CVCDP across the nation’s geo-political zones through many trainers that would have been churned out after the training.

    So far, he said, 109 have been trained.The participants, he said, have been empowered and mandated to further step down the training to the grassroots level in their respective states.

    “As facilitators in VCD, you will mobilise the stakeholders – producers, processors, marketers and even consumers – to unite in their activities to ensure food security, provide employment and increase income.”

    According to him, an interim executive body would be elected and commissioned; and ARMTI is willing to provide facilities for a secretariat for the association.

  • Stallion bags outstanding rice value chain award

    Stallion integrated rice value chain approach has won the Feed Nigeria Summit “Agro Processor of the Year Award” at the  Nigeria Agriculture Awards.

    The award is in recognition of Stallion Popular Farms & Mills Limited concerted efforts at integrating rice value chain in the Nigerian agrarian economy as well as its dogged resolves to humanise farmed rice and self-sustainability in food production.

    ”We owe this accomplishment to President Muhammadu Buhari’s leadership atitudes and his agrarian-business agenda,” Stallion Popular farms & Mills Group Director Hapreet Singh remarked. He said the farm was leveraging the policy impetus of the Federal Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda to bring sustainable and scalable growth to farmers.

    The farm’s effort to increase cultivated rice yield began in 2007 and has since been at the forefront of paddy agronomists in the country, working tirelessly to enhance rice production through scientific agricultural practices.

    Singh, while receiving the award,  at the event in Lagos, said it hoped to increase locally farmed rice to 1.5million tonnes yearly from 450, 000 metric tonnes.

    He said the farm has already deployed enhanced milling activities and set up more milling facilities through structured farming techniques.

    While thanking Feed Nigeria Summit for creating a platform to acknowledge real positive change makers in the agrarian sector, Mr. Singh said the creation of integrated agricultural operations such as world-class rice mills at strategic locations would promote milling and paddy cultivation in the captive areas and consequently make Nigeria self-sufficient in rice production.

    Anambra State Commissioner for Agriculture, Afam Mbanefo, who presented the award to the firm’s representative plauded Popular Farms and Mills commitment to the Federal Government’s exhaustive agenda in rice production.

    “You have not only supported the country’s agrarian objective for self-sufficiency in rice production, but have also worked assiduously with local and state governments in ensuring food security. Your efforts are indeed remarkable,” he added.

  • Heritage Bank to fund agric value-chain

    Heritage Bank to fund agric value-chain

    Heritage Bank Plc has disclosed plans to revolutionise the agricultural value-chain field, particularly the rice farming that will enhance agribusiness and aid economic development through its direct participation in the much lauded Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
    Group Head, Agriculture Finance, Heritage Bank, Olugbenga Awe, in a speech delivered at the third edition of Rice Investment Summit in Abuja in collaboration with New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD), said the bank’s drive to support rice production was borne out of the conviction that agribusiness is profitable and act of patriotism to achieve food security and sufficiency in the country.
    He, however, noted that the challenges facing rice production were subset of myriads of constraints facing agriculture in general, as most farmlands are located in the rural areas with poor road network and electricity supply, majority are financially excluded with no access to banking services.
    He hinted that Heritage Bank is effectively tackling the bottlenecks, since it has long identified the opportunities in agribusiness before the collapse of crude oil prices through its various programmes, which will contribute to the projection for year 2020 in the production of 7.7million metric tonnes of milled rice or 10.8million metric tonnes of paddy rice at milling recovery ratio of 62per cent.

  • How industries can boost agric value chain

    How industries can boost agric value chain

    Nigeria spends about N1.3 trillion yearly on food import. But a rethink in favour of using the industrial sector to enhance the agricultural value chain through private sector-led strategy holds promises of reversing the trend. Asst. Editor, OKWY IROEGBU-CHIKEZIE writes that the strategy, which encourages the involement of industries in storage, processing and export of agricultural raw materials to create jobs, enjoys the support of experts as well as the new administration of Muhammadu Buhari.

    Efforts at making agriculture more productive, efficient and competitive are on course. This time, the strategy is to find a way of riding on the back of the industrial sector to further enhacethe agricultural value chain. Essentially, the new rethink is in favour of encouraging  industries to be involved in areas such as storage, processing, and export of finished agric produce to create more jobs for Nigerians.

    To this end, experts and stakeholders in the agric and industrial sector are canvassing private sector-led strategy to boost the agric sector and make it a cash-cow for Nigeria. In doing so, they noted, for instance, that Nigeria has huge agricultural potential with over 84 million hectares of arable land, of which only 40 per cent is cultivated. Also, Nigeria’s estimated population of 170 million makes her Africa’s largest market. Besides, the country has some of the richest natural resources. Regrettably, the country has so far failed to properly harness these opportunities and derive benefits there from.

    However, a new dawn may be in the offing for the sector following renewed emphasis on private sector-led involvement in the agricultural value chain. The strategy is intended   to make  agriculture more productive, efficient and competitive through  improved food production for domestic food supply. It is also hoped that the strategy, which already enjoys the support of President Muhammadu Buhari, would help create more jobs along the agricultural value chain.

    At the 55th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), in Calabar, Cross River State, recently, Buhari said agriculture must cease from being treated as a development programme but as a business.

    The President said the urgency of unlocking Africa’s agricultural potential is pertinent because Africa spends $35 billion yearly on food import, with Nigeria taking the lion share. The development, he said, boosts the economies of countries and continents where such food items are imported from, leaving African economies depleted. “Africa has no business being a food importing region. With over 65 per cent of the arable land left to feed the expected nine billion people in the world by 2050, Africa should become a net exporter of food,” he said, adding that the size of the agriculture and agri-business sector in Africa is expected to grow to $1trillion by 2030.

    He projected that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in agriculture in Africa will increase from $10billion in 2015 to $45billion in 2020.

    “To unlock this potential, we need to direct resources, both public and private, to agriculture, the sector which employs close to 80 per cent of Africans and accounts for about 40 per cent of the continent’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” he said.

    The president, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, Alhaji Baba Umar Farouk, noted that a nation that does not feed itself becomes a threat to its sovereign existence.

    “Growing our own food, processing what we produce, becoming competitive in export markets, and creating jobs all across economy, are crucial for our national security,” he stated.

    The President added that as the nation drives a private sector-led agricultural transformation, government is also paying close attention to potential challenges, such as inequality and impact on small holders.

    According to him, there is need to embrace growth and make it work for farmers and rural communities.

    Hear him: “Agri-business, with their huge market pool and demand for raw materials for their factories can unlock the much needed market opportunities that have eluded farmers and expand jobs so crucial for the rising youth population in the rural areas as we have a policy that allows agri-businesses to have secure access to land, working closely with states, local government and communities. Such arrangements allow for transfer of technology, development of infrastructure, creation of market facilities, while unlocking shared prosperity between small holders and large commercial farmers.”

    Buhari regretted the ugly turn of events where Nigeria grew from being a major player in the global agricultural market in the past as the world’s largest producer of groundnuts and palm oil in the 1960’s, and the second largest producer of cocoa before the emergence of oil in the 1960’s to the current level she cannot boast of anything. “Today, seven of the 10 fastest growing economies of the world are in Africa.

    But there exists a paradox. The growth is not inclusive, as hundreds of millions only hear about the growth numbers, but feel alienated from the growth process. Africa’s rural economies habour the greatest share of those being left behind or excluded,” he said.

    He, therefore, said there is need for a new growth model in Africa, one that will stimulate shared prosperity, create jobs for millions of rural youth and unlock the huge sleeping potentials of Africa’s vast agricultural lands. He urged experts in the field to come up with recommendations for the government.

    Acting National President, NACCIMA, Chief Bassey Edem, called for enhanced productive economic activities that would bring about growth and development, improved GDP and by implication, enhance the nation’s domestic and foreign exchange earnings as well as more clout for the country in the comity of nations.

    He also called for a sustained growth and development in all areas of the economy where everyone would have equal opportunity to contribute his quota, and where justice and equity will reign.

    Edem assured of NACCIMA’s support, encouraging his members to ensure that they continued to partner the government and other private sector stakeholders with genuine intention to move the economy forward to build a virile nation on the part of sustainable growth and development.

    He said the theme of this year’s conference, ‘Policy consistency in agricultural value chain: A key to social economic development’ came at the right time considering the state of the  economy in particular and the global economy in general. He was referring to dwindling crude oil prices in the international market.

    He harped on the need to look inwards and go back to the basics to appreciate the importance of agriculture in the socio-economic development of the nation.

    “The business community is facing serious challenges. In order to ease these problems and to chart a course for the nation’s sustainable growth and development, we make a clarion call on the various tiers of governments especially now that we have a new democratic regime in place to create conducive environment that will make the economy a private sector driven one.  This is a sure way of making our country a prosperous nation that we all will be proud of,” he noted.

    Executive Director Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Dr Yemi Akinbamijo, who was guest speaker at the event, said Nigeria spends much of its foreign exchange to import food items.

    He called for Public-Private Participation (PPP) to leverage on economic transformation of the agricultural sector. He also made a case for innovations in small scale holders regarding harvesting, processing and access to markets.

    “It will take three things to move the agricultural sector forward. We need to enhance science, research technologies that improve production of the small holder. There is a need to leverage ICT to improve risk management through effective and efficient market linkages, enhance preservation of nutrient quality,” he said, adding that there was also the need to expand entrepreneurship of groups of women and youth, improve productivity via access to improved seeds, fertiliser, water management techniques and equipment financing.