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Agric 2011: G oba Impacts On Nigeria's Agriculture By Olukayude Oyeleye F all events expected to shape agriculture and food security in Nigeria this year, those originating from outside the shores of the country show signs of potentially strong influence on the economy and livelihoods. They will also test the resilience of stakeholders and responsiveness of policy makers. The unfolding events will determine how the nation adjusts and copes since the events are likely to be subject to the dictates of events at the global and regional levels, most of which the country will have no direct control over. Great and rapid changes are taking place worldwide on the environment front will impact on agriculture and food security. A release from the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) last month raised urgent issues to which Nigeria needs to urgently respond, in terms of policy and financial commitments. The United Nations General Assembly, last December, backed a resolution signing into life an 'IPCC-for Nature' document which places responsibilities on countries to have a second look at the loss of biodiversity. In that resolution, a new international body aimed at catalysing a global response to the loss of biodiversity and world's economicallyimportant forests, coral reefs and other ecosystems was born by governments at the United Nations 65th General Assembly (UNGA). The adoption, by the UNGA plenary, was the last approval needed for setting up an Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The independent platform will in many ways mirror the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has assisted in catalysing worldwide understanding and governmental action on global warming. The new body will bridge the gulf between the wealth of scientific knowledge on the accelerating declines and degradation of the natural world, with knowledge on effective solutions and decisive government action required to reverse these damaging trends. But, how Nigeria will hope to henefit from this development remains to be seen, going by the country's poor outing at the conferences on climate change in Addis Ababa and Cancun late last year. Nigeria's territorial waters at the coastal region will need proper reckoning and preventive measures to keep overfishing in check. Another report from UNEP in December emphasised tfie urgency of advancing negotiations at the World Trade OrganisatIon (WIO) towards an international agreement to ban harmful government fishing subsidies and to introduce new measures to ensure the sustainability and future viability of the world's oceans. UNEP's new publication, "Fisheries Subsidies, Sustainable Development and the WIO" seems a timely reminder that the clock is ticking and that oceans cannot wait. It reviews efforts to escalate fishing subsidies reform within the global trade body over the last decade, and-focuses on the hurdles governments now face to determine which subsidies to stop and which ones to limit. In addition to providing significant potential economic benefits, fisheries are also an important source of livelihood and food, serving as the main source of protein for the populace. Yet, it has been reported that 80 per cent of the world's commercial fish stocks are depleted or have been fished beyond their biological carrying capacity, and economic losses due to over-capacity and over-fishing have been estimated at USSso billion per year. Government subsidies have been recognised as one of the primary causes of this excessive exploitation, which in turn has threatened the integrity of the marine environment. "This is an enormous waste of natural capital and it is threatening food security, development and the marine habitat," said Steven Stone, Chief of UNEP's Economics and Trade Branch. "These harmful fisheries subsidies run contrary to the very ethos of a Green Economy, which promotes investing in the environment as an engine for economic recovery and sustainable growth," he added. The UNEP publication underscores why government subsidies for the fishing sector must be more transparent and accountable if the rules agreed by the WIO are going to be effective.
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Egg packaging in Nigeria now matches world standard. What is required now is appropriate and stable government policy to enable producers remain in profitable business.
IGERIA depends heavily on international trade for food security as a lot of food staples are imported annually and more of each commodity continues to be imported each passing year. The dependence on importation also brings with it the vagaries and uncertainties of the maritime industry. A review of maritime transport in 2010 from the United Nations Conference on n-ade and Development (UNCTAD) has shown that total seaborne trade is subject to numerous uncertainties and to the fragile global economic condrtions. Seaborne trade figures in dry bulk commodities - such as grains, and other industrial raw materials (mostly metals), mask fluctuations by commodity type. Maritime transport is the single most important transport mode; it has around 80 per cent of the market share in the international movement of goods. However, in some developing countries this percentage is much higher, due to cumbersome cross-border procedures and an underdeveloped land transport infrastructure. The Review also detailed recent developments in maritime legislation, such as steps by the International Maritime Organisation regarding the scope and content of an international regime to control emissions of greenhouse gases from international shipping. In April 2010, a Protocol on the 1996 Hazardous and Noxious Substances Convention was adopted which aims to bring about wider adoption of the Convention. Agriculture in Nigeria is still essentially associated with rural areas and poverty of farmers. How the nation addresses these issues this year should entail looking beyond the borders. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in its 2011 rural poverty report, provides a coherent and comprehensive Took at rural poverty, its global consequences and the prospects for eradicating it. Released in December, the report contains updated estimates by IFAD regarding how many rural poor people there are in the developing world, poverty rates in rural areas, and the percentage of poor people residing in rural areas. Since the Rural Poverty Report was published by IFAD in 2001, more than 350 million rural people have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty. But the new report notes that global poverty remains a massive and predominantly rural phenomenon - with 70 per cenrofthe deve]opingworld'S1.4 billion extremely poor people living in rural areas. Key areas of concern are Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Increasingly volatile food
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prices, the uncertainties and effects of climate change, and a range of natural resource constraints will complicate further efforts to reduce rural poverty, the report said. But the report also emphasises that profound changes in agricultural markets are giving rise to new and promising opportunities for the developing world's smallholder farmers to significantly boost their productivity, which will be necessary to ensure enough food for an increasingly urbanised global population estimated to reach at least nine billion by 2050. Accordingly, "there remains an urgent need ... to invest more and better in agriculture and rural areas" based on "a new approach to smallholder agriculture that is both market-oriented and sustainable; the report added. ''The report makes clear that it is time to look at poor smallholder farmers and rural entrepreneurs in a completely new way - not as charity cases but as people whose innovation, dynamism and hard work will bring prosperity to their communities and greater food security to the world in the decades ahead," observed Kanayo F. Nwanze, IFAD's President. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), an agricultural think-tank based in Washington, DC., in its new report on Communiry-Driven Development (CDD) in Nigeria, did an assessment recently on the impacts of Fadama II, a CDD project that is currently Nigeria's largest agricultural project. The report, titled From the ground up: Impacts of a pro-poor community-driven development project in Nigeria, showed that Fadama II project succeeded in targeting the poor and women farmers in its productive asset acquiSition component. Participation in the project also increased the income of benefiCiaries by about 60 per cent, which is well above the targeted increase of only 20 per cent in the six-year period of the project. DEGARDING rural infrastructure invest~ents, it was found that the Fadama II project had positive near-term impacts on beneficiaries' access to markets and transportation costs, although the study revealed surprising effects on beneficiaries' commerCIal behaviour and statistically insignificant impacts on nonfarm activities. The researchers observed that Fadama II increased the demand for postharvest handling technologies but did not have a significant impact on the demand for financial management and mar-
"There remains an l!rgent need ... to invest more and better in agriculture and rural areas" based on ..~ new approach to smallholder agriculture that is both market-oriented and sustainable,"
ket information. Fadama II reduced the demand for soil fertility management technologies. The decline likely refiects the prolect's focus on providing postproduction adVIsory services and suggests the need for the project to increase its support for soil fertility management and thus limit the potential for land degradation resulting from increased agricultural productivity. The IFPRI's report written by Ephraim Nkonya, Dayo Philli,P" Tunji Arokoyo and five others stated that: The unique feature that could have contributed to the significant impact of the project in a short time is its broadbased approach, which addresses the major constraints limiting the success of CDD projects that address only one or two constraints. This has implications on planning poverty reduction efforts ialow-income countries. Given that the poor face numerous constraints, a CDD project that simultaneously addresses many constraints will likely build synergies that will lead to larger impacts than will a project that addresses only one or two constraints. This suggests the need forthe government and donors to pool resources and initiate multipronged CDD projects rather than many isolated proJects. DEGIONAL trade agreements will require an I\.introspective view if agriculture is to receive favourable attention this year. A release from Agriculture News Update for Janual)l201l by the Technical Centre for Agriculture (CIA), based in Netherlands, pointed at 'key divergences' affecting the conclusion of the Economic Partnership Agreement being brol<ered between West Africa and the European Union (EU). Emerging from a seminar organised by the West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) Consular Chamber in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, last November, were outstanding challenges still faced in the West Africa-EU EPA negotiations. Areas where there are major differences still to be resolved include West Africa's market access offer to the EU and rules of origin within the framework of the dismantling of tariffs. In addition, the EU's continuing insistence on the inclusion of the Most Favoured Nation clause remains a major point of divergence. In common with other regions such as the EU SADC EPA region, West Africa remains opposed to the inclusion of the MFN clause and, as 'discussions have been exhausted at a technical level', it is a point that will require political resolution. The EU's current position requires market liberalisation of 80 {ler cent over IS years, whereas West Africa s current offer is to liberalise some 70 per cent of its market over a 25year period. Highlighting these major differences, one of the participants in the seminar, WAEMU's Commissioner Christophe Dabire, responsible for trade, indicated the need to 'hurry slowly' towards conclusion of the ne~oriations, given that the future of the region s economies was at stake. Nigeria is one of the three West African coun- . tries expected to benefit from the World Bank's expanded West Africa Agricultural Prod uctivity Program (WMPP-IB). This second phase of tlie Bank's programme is expected to support food security in the sub-region by generating new knowledge and technologies. The other two beneficiary countries are Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire. In a release last November, it was indicated that these three countries are to be added to the Bank's regional integration efforts through WMPP to increase economic growth and help reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The US$122 million WMPP-IB project was approved by the World Bank Board on September 30. The WAAPP is expected to help achieve significant growth in agricultural output to fight against food insecurity and poverty, and ultimately reach the MDGs, in the ECOWAS region. "Regional Cooperation is critical for achieving agricultural growth and food security in West Africa; said Yusupha Crookes, the World Bank director of Regional Integration for Africa. "The World Bank is committed to continue to help all countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) participate in this Program." The project aims to generate and accelerate adoption of improved technologies in the top priority agricultural commodities in the participatmg countries that are aligned with the sub-regional priorities defined by the ECOWAS Agricultural Policy.