SUNDAY PUNCH
BUSINESS
APRIL 3, 2011
22
Food security: Much investment, little success The Federal Government had initiated a number of laudable policies in agriculture: From Operation Feed the Nation to Green Revolution, Back to Land and the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure, but . the nation still spends billions of Naira on importation of major food items, EMEKA EZEKIEL looks at the issue N paper, agriculture has been the major
~ driver of Nigeria's economic growth and
~ j development over the last 10 years.
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According to the latest report on the contribution of the sector to national economy growth, a copy of which was obtained by our correspondent from the National Planning Commission , the agricu ltural sector grew at average Gross Domestic Product rate of 10.5 per cent within the period under review Specifically, the document titled "Vision 20:2020. The First National Implementation Plan" , stated, " Agriculture remained the highest growth driver of the Nigerian economy growing by 10 per cent on the.• average and contribu ting about 73.1 per cent of output expansion annually throughout the period." The report noted that crop production , which was·driven largely by favourable weather condition, was the dominant agricultural sub·sector growth driver with an annual growth rate of 11.5 per cent. Experts say Nigeria's huge spending on fertiliser subsidy has not impacted on the sector. For instance, in the 2009 crop season , the country spent N50bn to purchase 500,000 metric tonnes of fertiliser. While the scheme is intended to benefit small·scale farmers for increased crop yield, the real beneficiaries have been rent-seeking government officials, fertiliser merchants and agents. Similarly, it was learnt the commodity price support schemes, the strategic grain reserve scheme, the river basin development authorities and scrapped commodity boards 'bnly benefited merchants, contractors and government agents and not the small-scale farmers. Despite the Federal Government's laudable policies and huge budgetary allocation to the sector, the country is curren tl y spending billions of naira on importation of major food items. For instance, the latest statistics from the Central Bank of Nigeria sh6wed that the country spent N155bn on importation of rice in 2010. The CBN Governor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, said this in Kaduna at the Northern Nigeria Economic Summit organised by the Northern Political Summit Group, otherwise known as the G20. While presenting the lead paper titled , "Mobilising Capital for Transformation of Northern Nigeria," Sanusi said that it was regrettable for the country to be a major importer of rice when it had good climate and resources to produce the staple locally. He said, "$lbn was spent to import rice in 2010 because a few greedy people are benefitting from the importation. Some states in the North are poorer than Niger, Cameroun and Chad , eve.n when agriculture constituted 42 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product of Nigeria and nobody is paying attention to this critical area of economic growth and national development. The North has hide and skin, yet we .do not have leather processing industries in the regIon . In 2008, Nigeria's total food and agricultural imports were valued at approximately $4bn. In 2009, the Ministry of Agriculture put the amount spent on food imports, mainly rice, wheat, sugar and fish products, at N555bn. Investigations, however, revealed that the sector is curren tl y being plagued by policy and funding inconsistency as well as inefficiency in the implementation of various
programmes aimed at boosting food security . According to findings, in 2009, more than N400bn was injected into the sector, while in 2010, agriculture accounted for only 3.7 per cent of budgetary allocation (recurrent N34.4 bn and capital N49.9 bn) . H owever, between 1977 and 2005, government's funding for the sector was characterised by inconsistency. In 1977, agriculture's share of the national budget was less than one per cent; in 1980, 1.3 per cent; 1982, 4.2 per cent; 1983, six per cent; 1984, two per cent; 1985, five per cent; 1993,3.2 per cent; 2000, one per cent; 2001. 4.2 per cent and 2005, 1.6 per cent. Speaking on the problem of policy inconsistency, the Minister of Agriculture, Prof. Sheikh Abdullah, said, "Nigeria's agricultural development has always been involved in the search of a holistic policy framework that should address the myriad problems that are inherent in the sector. Thus, policies from the era of Operation Feed the Nation, Green Revolution , Back to Land to the establishment of the Directorate of Food. Roads and Rural Infrastructure yielded little results in strengthening the entire value chain process as undue emphasis was placed on production that often leads to glut, post·harvest losses and food insecurity in the country." In an interview with our correspondent, the Secretary of Agricultural Commodity General, Federation Associations of Nigeria, Mr. Akin Gbadamosi, said lack of political will on the part of the government to implement past and current agricultural policies was responsible for the country's inability to achieve self·sufficiency in food production . He said, "Nigeria has no business importing food items. The problem is that the budget is not being judiciously implemented. There is need for the government to work with commodity associations to be able to achieve meaningful result. "Currently, agriculture contributes 43 per cent to Nigeria's GDP while cocoa contributes 23 per cent. Formerly, Ghana and Nigeria were the world's largest exporter of cocoa. But the story has changed for the worse due to poor implementation of government policies and programmes. He added, "Nigeria is blessed with more arable land than the countries from where we import food items. The fertilizer that is supposed to help peasant farmers boost cocoa production is not at the reach of the ordinary farmers." But the Minister of Agriculture, Abdullah, said the ministry had made giant strides in its efforts towards achieving food security for the country. He said, "In the fertilizer sub-sector, the ministry has con tinued to provide subSidy support for farm ers in Nigeria under the Fertilizer Market Stabilisation Programme. "Between 2007 and 2009, a total of 1.23million metric
tonnes of fertilizers was procured and distributed to the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory at the cost of N29.l6bn. However, in 2010, the Federal Government provided the sum of N22.30bn as 25 per cent subsidy for the procurement and distribution of 900,000 metric tonnes of fertilizers to the states and FCT valued at N89.31bn . This intervention represents the highest provision in any single year since the incep tion of this programme in 1999 . to date. The Vision 20:2020 report projected that the sector would grow at an annual rate of 6 .7 per cent within the next three years. The growth in the sector will be bolstered by government's initiatives, which are aimed at increasing commercial agriculture . The report said , "The agricultural sector will be favoured by increase in terms of trade, due to increasing demand for bio·fuels. However, the sector is projected to decline slightly in its contribution to real GDP to 40.1 per cent during the plan period, compared with 41.8 per cent in 2004 to 2009 as a result of diversification of efforts." In order to boost food security, achieve self sustenance in food production, and attain the Millennium Development Goals of reducing by half the number of hungry people by 2015, the Federal Government inaugurated the National Special Programme for Food Security in 2007 . According to Food and Agricultural Organisation , the Federal Government is expected to spend about $45m to implement the NSPFS programme, whereas the Food and Agricultural Organisation would offer the technical and managerial support on demand to the Federal Government. The objectives of the NSPFS are to improve national and household food security and reduce rural poverty in an econom ically and environmental sustainable way; to improve household food security and incomes though increases in productivity, diversification and sustainable use of natural resources; to enhance food security of consumers through improved access to and availability of food and also increase income of producers through more efficient marketing. According to the National Food Security base document, published in August 2008, Nigeria is expected to achieve self ·sufficiency in the production . SpeCifically, the Federal Government's projections for the various crops between 2008 and 2011 , include : increasing production from 2.8 million metric tonnes of paddy to 5 .6 million metric tonnes rice per annum by 2011; achieving 500,000 metric tonnes of local production of wheat to avoid over dependence on wheat importation ; meeting the national demand for sugar estimated at 2.2 million metric tonnes per annum , among other things.