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Tuesday, January 11,2011
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DAILY TRUST
Business/Agric
Food security:INigeria should copy Obasanjo, Sebore Farms' "t
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Dr. Modu Bukar is a researcher at University of Putra Malaysia. In this interview, he discusses how Malaysia surmounted its problems to achieve food security and how Nigeria can do the same. From Iblaheem Dooba, Malaysia NIGERIA shares similar history, cfunate and problems with Malaysia. Also, like Nigeria, Malaysia is a mul-tiradal and multi-religious COWltry. Yet, the agrirultural sectors of the two cOWltries are iuoqmparable. At what stage did Malaysia leave us bebiud? Like in Nigeria, in Malaysia, they had political problems too. Theirproblems were even more colossal than ours. The casualties might not be as many but their civil uprising was certainly more prolonged. The Communist PartyofMalaya (CPM) for example waged warwith Malayaand then Malaysiafor41 years! CbinPengand his comrades started their armed insurgency against the British but even after Malaya achieved independence in August 1957 they continued to attack the new government because they felt it was a lackey of the British Government Their aim was to establish a communist system in Malaysia and align it with the Communist Party of China. The CPM problem started since World War II and ended in Dec 2nd 1989 when Dr. Mabathir reached a peace accord with Chin Pengand his comrades. Then there was the May 13 riot of 1969, which was totally unrelated to the communist problem. So Malaysia suffered a lot of problems too just like Nigeria. However, when development started in earnest in the 80s during the time of Mahathir, in Nigeria, things started taking a serious nosedive under IBB's watch. His administration swallowed the halfbrained economic policies that Mahathirresisted Mahathir路s eyes never left the ball. In 1976, Malaysia's core poverty rate was 70 per cent; today it's fewer than 5 percent In contrast, more than 70 percent of Nigerians are living under less than one dollar a day. Today, Malaysia has achieved full employment status (a country is said to have achieved full employment if unemployment rate
is less than 4 per cent); the unemployment rate in Malaysia is 3.6 percent. Coming back to your question, Malaysia overtook Nigeria in the 80s and we've not seen her back since and if we continue at this pace, we'll never do so in 100 years. Let's talk about food security in both countries. In Malaysia we can say with some degree of confidence that what the Prime Minister eats is what ordinary people eat because what you call good food is affordable to everybody. The same is not true in Nigeria where even the so-called middle class is hungry. Go to our villages and see how our people lack food. And the malnutrition is causing them to suffer different diseases which we have no adequate health facilities to treat And whyare these people who used to have food in abundance struggling to eat now? Its because the government has abandoned the fanners. But no sane government abandons its farmers on the say-so of the Wo~ld Bank and IMF, because it's a matter of national security. Malaysia does not pay lip service to food security. . They are not nearly endowed with arable land like Nigeria but they make maximum use of it They subsidise agriculture in various ways, they invest in modem fanning techniques that would benefit their farmers. They also motivate and adequately remunerate their agricultural scientists and extension workers to be effective. In Nigeria, our politicians consider these set of civil servants as a liability that should be paid the most minimum pay and asked to shut up! Thewhole attitude is compIetely different Thus, should Nigeria move forward or backwards? We started well in the 60's and 70's. The various levels ofgovernment were sincere in their efforts. The river basin development authorities were set up and were active. We had tremendouspotentials thatwererealisable. However,atacertain point in our history, the vultures took over. The river basins were seen by
those at the helm of affairs not so much as means to develop our agriculture and provide essential services to the public but rather, a means of self enrichment Today, the Chad Basin. Development Authority and Hadeja-Jamaare river basin development authorities among others are a mere shadow of their former selves. The governrnent though, has already proven itself incapable of boosting agricultural development still has an inescapable and essential role to play. The bright spots we still have though so few must be supported. Large scale private sector investment into livestock development has brought many opportunities both to the economy and to the immediate communities where they are sited. Obasanjo Farms and Sebore Fanns are a few examples. The poultry production sector has so far been the most developed in Nigeria simply because of ptivate Sector participation. Theywere able to survive even without the most needed subsidies - particularly feed subsidies. The other livestock sectors have to be shown to be viable business opporttmities to attract such investors. One way where the survival instinct ofpeople is fighting back despite the absolute lack of government support and encouragement in Maiduguri is in the area of cattle fattening. Youths are increasingly becoming involved in purchase of a particular breed ofcattle imported from as far as Central African Republic. '!hey fatten those using locally available feed materials and that particular .reed called i\mbala' respond very well to feeding. Our local cattle take 4 months to properly fatten while it takes Ambala路 only 2 months hence the encouraging profit margin. I know many people who have taken up this as full time employment Note that female Ambala are never allowed to come to Nigeria, I have never seen any myself. However, what is stopping us from using artificial insemination techniques to develop our own breeds to be similarly excellent meat breeds? The answer is the same reason our livestock sector is so undeveloped What should government do? Malaysia does not pay lip service to malting credit facilities available to their farmers. They do have their problems I admit but it's not like Nigeria where it appears that the poor farmer has no hope of ever securing any credit facility either from government ofcommercial banks. Other factors that are necessary for agriCultural development in any country should also be available in Nigeria, like security, infrastructure, well managed economy, sincere and responsible leadership, etc.
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