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AgriC2011:
Portents Of Agriculture By Olukayode Oyeleye OOD SECURllY in year 2011 and the planks on which it rests will be a major issue Tor the public as it touches every individual and household. Although pundits have assured that agriculture and agricultural development in the past couple of years have been recording a steady increase of about six per cent annually, the actual growth is better assessed by the producers and end users of agricultural produce, namely the farmers and the consumers. The quality of life of most farmers, mostly rural and subsistent, and the cost of procuring food are sure indicators of whether agriculture is growing or not. Whether the growth rate is a product of planned annual extrapolation (akin to accountants' creative accounting) or due to organised articulation of facts and figures would become evident as the year wears on. Different media, agric-based journals, magazines and experts agree that two-thirds of Nigerian populatlon is involved in agriculture, either in production, processing, storage, or transportation. How well the various actors in agriculture have fared is yet to be properly put in rerspective. Hoes and cutlasses farming is stil the norm in most cases, with farmers holding an average of one acre of land for an al~year-round farming activity. Consensus of opinion shows that the yiefds per acre of farmers, particularly those on monocropping, remained one of the poorest last year, especially as unimproved vaneties of seeds still continued to be largely used for planting. Cassava and rice initiative, which began to yield good results towards the end of Ohasanjo's regime remained at the hackburner all through 2010. On the livestock side, apart from poultry, piggery and farmed fisheries, which ran on commercial scale, the breeds of animals in use still mostly remained unimproved, and so were their yield and return on investment. The cattle production segment of the livestock industry remained largely unresponsive to demands as the animals used were not seen by the herdsmen as purely commercial, the yield remaining low and animals' reproductive cycles taking longer than expected in modem day cattle breeding programmes. The population of cattle officially declared remained putative from the simple arguments on the slow maturity of the local breeds of cow, number of calving in every four year period, absolute weight attainable at maturity, feeding regime and nature of feeds and feeding stuffs, health care management, and stability of farmers in one place. Nigerian cattle could still not be clearly classified on the hasis of products: beef or dairy. Every cow in the field was still a dual purpose cow, producing milk during active reproductive period and turning to beef when old and considered unproductive. An NGO executive, Eniola Dada, called on the food and agricultural policy commission of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) to harmunise government policies. The agriculture minister, Professor Sheikh Abdallah, a~eed that there has been "amismatchinrolicies and that "our problems are not much 0 poliCies but of implementation." It is hoped, therefore, that he will ensure proper pOSitioning and implementation of agricultural policies in the year. Asummit for diary producers held in Abuja last December 9th, brought out strikin~ la!,ses in cattle production industry in Nigena. Ukagha Amogu, a retired deputy director at the Federal Department of Livestock and Pest Control Services (FDLPCS), contrasted the expected milk requirement in Nigena for 2011 with expected production. According to him, 2_05 million metric tons (Mf) of milk is expected to be consumed this year as opposed to 639,940 MT to be produced and 1.4 million MT expected to be imported. Amogu, an animal scientist, explained that the performance of domestic milk production in Nigeria has been very poor, and did not give a ray of hope that things are about to change for the better in years ahead, particularly if current production practices remain. Rather, he said that "population and demand for dairy products are increasing faster than domestic supply." He, however, hinted that the self-suffiCIency
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Chairman of Ogun State chapter of Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Dr. Ferni Faniyi (third left), his wife and Dr.lokan Odunsi with other participants at the 2010 PAN exhibition in
Abeokuta " recently.
ratio, which he put at a dismal 31.23 per cent for 2011, could be unproved significantlyfrom2010 to 2025 "with appropriate poliCies.
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of the appropriate policy issues was drummed u by a Nigerian in the diaspora, MichaefEzekwe who expressed Worries about the deteriorating extension system in Nigeria, despite its core relevance to agriculture and food security. On the failure of extension systems to make any definite impact on agriculture and food security in the country and the diminishing impact of the Nigerian Agricultural Extension Research and Liaison Services (NAERLS), Ezekwe, a professor of animal nutrition at Alcorn State University; Mississippi, US, suggested that extension services be moved from ~overnment ministries of agriculture to UnIversities as done in the United States, where the extension researchers work directly with farmers. PoliCies addressing the production side of agriculture as a !,ractlcal step towards understanding areas of shortfall or overproduction would be important for2011. From there, issues relating to value chains would require thorough and detailed attention. Value chains studies would hel p greatly in formulating and Implementing appropriate poliCies and discovering appropriate segments where wastages occur and how to avert or minimise them. In local dairy industry for instance, an experienced Amogu observed that "marketed supplies of milk from the Fulani herdsmen remain low" and "up to 90 per cent of fresh milk produced do not get to tbe processing plants aue to lack of capacity for milk collection, causing gross capacity under-utilisation of existing plants." The grancliose grain reserve project of the immediate past minister of agriculture, Abba Ruma, would need revisiting, with a view to modifying the operations. The National Food Reserve Agency seemed an albatross and a dormant bureaucracy that tended to create rather than solve problems as the locations of the silos suggest. 5alisu Ingawa, an agricultural scientist who is an insider, asked rhetorically, that ''why not spend a fraction of the S3 billion annually spent on importing food on helping local proaUction?" He should go further by articulating how this can be done. Commodities regarded as cash crops would require a coordinated policy and programme from the government to faCilitate better returns for producers and exporters alike, with fairness. International prices, determining the fortunes of exporters, need to be proactively disseminated through organised channels to the appropriate beneficiaries to help them compete well and remain in thriving business. A situation in which producers and exporters are short-changed in the international marketplace is worrisome and discouraging enough and should not happen in 20LL Agricultural commodity exchange that has been drummed up' for some years now is ex-
Rected to act as a spur for competitive proauctIOn ofagro-commodltles that should remunerate producers and merchants well. To operate successfully, such a commodity exchange is expected to rely on realistic information base, competent personnel, stable polity, progressive agricultural policies that would empower farmers and encourage them to remain in business as well as an attain'!1ent of acceptable level of food security. The Impact of Faaama projects of the federal government needs review and modification this year. A programme originally designed for enhancing agricultural productivity through dry season farming in swamps (called fadama in Hausa) seems to have lost its bearing, inc0!llorating too many unrelated projects and diluting the original aims andconcepts,andmakingitsimpactonfood security more difficult to assess. Before rolling out any other phase, for that matter, a perfonnance evaluation of the past three phases needs to be done and the government needs to convince the nation that the programme has not really gone adrift.
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R1CULTIJRAI. insurance also needs a rethink in the new year. According to the uggestion of one agricultural consultant, Remi OsiJo of RBS Consulting, based in Lagos, government should consider diversifying the stakeholders' involvement in agricultural insurance operations by allowing the participation of private insurance companies. The involvement of Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Company (NAle) as the sole overator in agricultural insurance service !,roVlder, he reasoned, should be discontinuei:i and more players allowed in the private sector in keepmg with free market economy dictum. With the agricultural funds in place, there is also the need to reawaken the nation's dormant agricultural bank, the Nigerian Agricultural Credit and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB) and make it more respomive to the various peculiar needs of farmers. In the past two years, beginning with 2009, agricultural funds amounting to N200 billion were warehoused in two commercial banks that have proved that they have very little to do with agriculture compared with their other functions. According to the minister of Agriculture, recently, a situation in which agricultural funds are kept in commercial banKs "is an aberration." The minister is thus expected, in 2011, to reverse the trend and reactivate the dormant NACRDB, make it more responSive and move the heavy sums kept in the commercial hanks back into the agricultural bank for ease of disbursement to the intended beneficiaries. He is also expected to fulfil, this year, his promise to "look into the alleged inactivity of NAERLS," the only institutional extension system in Nigeria. It is officially acknowledged that the population of farmers is ageing and young ones are
"why not spend a fraction of the $3 billion annually spent on importing food on helping local production?"
not replacing th~n:' in comm~nsurate numbers. Abdallah, the munster, de~cnbed the SituatIOn now as an ~nverted pyraffild' where "older ones are those producing for younger ones to feed," and agreed that this was a 'policy challenge: How th~ professor of accountancy hopes to address this challenge this year is a critical issue as he admitted that there should be a shift in "portfolio of fundmg from subsistence level to commercial." . . . For agnculture to expenence real development m the northern part of the country thiS year, especi~lIy in the area of livestock production, at~entlon '."lust b~ I'aid to the connection .of the mte~ecme CnslS m and around los and Its ImpiIcatlon for food production. Beyond the sectarIan warfare, stability of food production will be impaired and food crisis mayarise in Plateau and other nearby states. Exotic vegetables (such pumpkins, cucumber, tomatoes and pepper) and root crops (such as carrots, irish potatoes) con路 sumed m most parts of the country are expected to be in short supply and even costlier as fong as the crisis Iingers_ Livelihoods of those farmers will be threatened, and there will be temptations for them to move from farms to the cities in search of other things to do outside agriculture. The long-term implications could be far-reaching. The ministry of agriculture needs to do an assessment study of the crisis alongSide, not just the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the military and police, but also with the ministry of social development within Plateau State and with the traditional institutions to broker peace and ensure agricultural production is allowed to continue unahated.
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and local governments have been particularly inactive and less visible in agriculture. Whereas agriculture is practised in the states and local governments, they have surprisingly exhibited embarraSSing lassitude over the past couple of years. What programmes the states embarked upon in agriculture, how the various states responded to agricultural needs of the people and the nation, and what they have done in terms of rural development, infrastructural up路 grade, sustainable livelihoods of farmers, environmental degradation and climate change and food security generally remain grey areas. Hardly noticeable are individual states' specific programmes.Apatt from recurrent expenditures of salanes and wages, their agriculture ministries have yet to demonstrate any major capital projects in agriculture that have clear bearings on food security. No fewer than three states had professors heading their ministries of agriculture in the past couple of years, but their academic skills have yet to be shown in the agricultural sector in those states. . At the local government levels, iJardly are there any lleculiar activities geared toward agricultural development. Land ownership problems are yet to be demonstrably properly handled by any of the local governments with respect to agricultural programmes and projects. Scarcity of sta路 tistics from the various local governments to still remained a problem, which made volumes and diversity of agricultural produce annually difficult to determine. What are the outlooks for the year 2011 in all of these areas?