Nigerian Tribune 15 Tuesd':y. 6 September. 2011
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The Minister of Agriculture and Rura l Development, Dr Aldnwun m i Adesina, recently led other top members of his ministry, including the Minister of State for Agriculture, Burka Tijani, and the Executive Secretary, Agricultura l Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), Professor Yusuf Abubakar, to !badan, Dyo State, for an interface with stakeholders. He also had an extensive deliberation with experts from different agricultural institutes in the ancient city. Seye Adeniyi was at the meeting and engaged the minister in an interview after the deliberations. His report:
N
IGERIA is sp"'nding N356 billion evo?ry year illl porting rice, N271 billion importing sugar. and N7 billion importing fish . In other words. we' re makIng fanners in other nations of the world rich while our o\~n fanners are getting poor. Nigerian fa rmers have become abandoned wIth no support and tll(!ir situation is almos t as if yo u put somebody inside a rickety bo.1t and put him in the centre of an AI/an tic ()o>an and asked him to s urvive. That is the situation of Nigerian farmers. But \vith dtterminOltion, dedic.1tion and seriousness, I believed Ihat the dead bones in the nation's ag ricul~ tural sector fohall live agai n, with God on our side. Transformation agenda for rocoa - In ll.ie case of COCl'lil, which is peculiar to the South~West. we need til have a marko;:ting board that would make things work for the development of roroa in Nigeria. That was how it used to be III the past and things actually worked then. But today, farmers can't get C'OC03 .seedlings. no s upport. no encouragement, they don't even have attCSS 10 fiKilities and credit. Rural roads. where greater percentage of tilE.' foods that we eilt COlTles from, are not tarrec:t. not 10 talk of being motorable. So we would wl'lrk wi th the governors of the South~ Western slates to bring bade the lost glory ul cocoa. Transformation a&enda for oil palm - We also ha ve plans (or the resusci tation of oil palm. We're revamping the oil~palm seclor and this would be done by seeking collaboration with the executive governors of the Sout h·Eastem states and other states concerned. 1'here is lhe I\CCCI to put in place what is called the Marketing Coopcratil)n for cocoo and oil palm. We are irlitiating a marketing cooperation between the governors of Sou th~ Wesl, 5outh~Eas t and 5ou th~ South states and developing what is also called a Trade Development Cooperoation thai would coordinate the en ~ lire rocoo and oil palm producing sectors. We have this in rocoo producing countries like Cameroun ilnd Ghana iUld we know what cocoa is to these countric:s. Transformation agenda for c:assava produc:lion- Farmers can make lot of money from other cassava by~ products if things are well structured. (~ organised and positiuned. Unfortunately loday, Nigeria produces 45 million met· ric torulCS of cassava. but \,'e can't boast of mudl in teons of value addition. l1'\CTefore, I'll.' are looking at casslwa as a saum! of i~ust ria l starch, syrup, ethanol and other useful products. Therefore, state governors should be ready to wo rk with us to develop the nation's agriculturod sectur. Sir, is that the only programme you have for the df!vf!/opment of agriculture In the country for the ned four years? Ag rio tlture is nut a way of life, it is not even 11 design or development programme, rather, agrirulture should be seen as a business. We are also looking towards mak· ing a pact with the state governments within an invest·
ment forum and ead, slate wnuld dett!rmine Wh.ll value
they want to gel and which of the SCCIOI5 uf agrirulture
they wan t 10 invest o n. The era of silling down in Ahuja and dictating 10 states is over. You need to work in part· ner$hip with slate governments for agriculture to experience s~y development in Nigeria. We would gjve them thl! necessary s up port, assis ta nce and inputs to ensure that we ha ve iI new agriculture sector in Nigeria.
You said you are embarkjng on a rescue misslon in thl! na tion 's agric.-uitural sec.-tor, ",hat does that mea n ?
ror
We have four transformation agenda agriculture just as I told the governor of Oyo State. Senator Abiola Ajimobi. We would embark on the bottom~ t o- t op approoch principle. We ha ve an in v~tmenl framework. we ha ve a partnership Pnlboramnle with the states,. pri~ vate sectors and indiViduals and we are also going 10 give attention to research and development. which is vital for any nation that wa nts good and s ustainable development. We have millions of famlers out there and we're going to make them part of our decision ~making to dL'" velop the new agricultu ral sector for the country. We cannot ~it down in Abuja and be forcing d~sion on states and farmers. Farmers are going to h,we a voice, we are p<lrt nering with them to know what LI~y actually want and lI'e arc reaJy to give them nect.'SS.1ry s up port and assistancc. By the lime we're living office, we would ruwC' made agriculture better than we mel iL We have many research outcomes and some a re on the shelves, how would your pro8rammes for research rJnd development be different from
those of the past administration ? Research had been abandOned in N igeria because there is no adequate fundmg which in\'ariably is hampering developmenL H~I/y, research in Nigeria has not been enioying adequate funding and s upport and there is 00 where in the world where there is dl'velop~ ment without adequate aaention a nd propeffunding for ReseardJ and /:kvdopment (R & 0) system. For instance, somebody was telling me about doing soil map for Nigeria, But I was told that today, if yo u' re going to do soil test. you will find the soil. but you won' t find the laboratory. Does that mean agriculture is not being proper.ly funded despite the huge budget for the sec:-
tor every year? Well. alii know is that we have about 0.8 per cent of the entire budget 01 the Fedt!ml MiniStry of Agriolltu re going into research. But since we are technocrats. we' re absolutely determined to d1ange the trend and boost the entire rescarc:h and development system in order to I.Je able to generate appropriate technologies. I believe that those technologies would add value to the value ch ain tha t we taJked abou t. In order words. we' re going to revamp the Resean:h & Development .(R & 0) system o( the country. What are you really types wiU be wiped out if focusing on for the next urgftnt action is not taken, four years? According to the Interna· Well. just to recap some lional Institute for Tropi ~ of the value chains. \VI' are cal Agriculture (fiTA). no fOCUSing on rice because banana vari et ies are we have tobeselfsuffident known to resist either in rice production. This B8ID or BXW. c:ounlry has no business - Spore Magazine spending N156 billion im~ porting rice. not at all. be-
High-tech tools against banana diseases
R
ESEARCHERS in Africa are u sing geographic posi· Honing sys tem (CPR) and geographic information system (GIS) in an attempt 10 tackle two dead ly banana diseases. The high lec:h approac:h \va5 aimed to de-
velop a visual rerord of the distribution of ba ~ nana bunc:hy top disease (BBTO) and banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW). Both d iseases are causing massive losses in parts of sub-Saharan Af~ rica lind there is II danger that all familiar banana
-Dr Aklnwunmi A desina muJit' we mn pnxluce rice in almO!;"t any of the agro· ecological zones of the country and we ~a ll produ~e enough rice in alm~t e\'ery eco-svstem of rice. Therefore. we have launched a rice green revolution and we're expecting support fmm various research institutcs in till! country . We also have a cass.wa green revolution. but we are fCIC'USing rnore on valu....adding. Do you have programmes for other crops? \Ve picked in the Northern Nigeda solne other crops. We pIcked cottOl' and we' re going to revaliliscd the en ~ tire collon industry. We used to Ix! a big player in the COllon h\dustry, but r was actunlly ,,;hocked thai Nigeria does not e,'en haw a ginnery fur a;tlon. We are in deep crisis as far as collon production IS conc:enled and it would also interest ),011 10 kno\v that when we are t.llk~ ing about the C-4 countries or cow\tnes group;..>d under C· " bat\ocr in Afric:a. our COUl1try is not there. But we ha,!e !:lurldna Faso, Chad, Mali, 8..:11111 Republic, Togo, Tanzania. Zimbabwe, Niger as leading calion producers in Afrka. Basically, Nigeria is almost left behind because we are not at the culling edge of some of the trans-fOmtilti ve technologies that are very important for tdh· nleal change. Tom atoes, pepper, onIons, and other lIeget.bles are sWI scarce and e;:~nsiv~ in many parts of the country, any hope or good message for consumers? I have been looking at onions nnd tomatoes. In tho;: case 01 tomato, when I was in Unh'ersity of Ife (now Obafemi A\volowo University). we used to ha ve Ife plump 10nlntOCi. There was also a variety of COI"pea deVl'lopcd in Ife called lFe brown beans. I don't know what is happening 10 them today? As we looked loday at the tomato situation rn Kad"H~a town, where we used 10 produced 630,CXXl metric Ions. which has al me down to aboul 240, 000 mf!lric tons, it means ,,,c're losing 60 per cent of everything produred thl!re per day. The problem is that there is no processing plant. no cold storage and the famlers at Kad'H~a don't get anything for producing tomatOt$ Nigeria has become a number CIne importer of tomato paste from o,ina. So I appealed to our sdl'ntisls, and roI\eagues to 6gure out the d\ina variety of tomaloes, work on it and get US the variety which would hi! produced here instt'acI of depending on 01lna for GmOed !OmatD. We also want our resea rch ers to work on reducing post·harvest loss because we loose :iO much of what we produced during harvest and this is affecting our food sufficiency programme a lot.
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