THISDAY, 23 MAY, 2011

Page 24, THISDAY, Vol. 15, No. 5873

Monday, May 23, 2011

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FEATURES EDITOR:

ROLAND OGBONNAYA

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Agriculture As Path to National Economic Development

ntil the country joined the rallk of oil-producing nations in 1958 , the country depended heavily on. agriculrure.

Agriculture, which used to be the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, has fallen out of grace in the country.

In the 60s, agriculture contributed more than 65 per cent of Nigeria's GOP. Then , the country was a net exporter of food and earned most of its foreign exchange from agricultural produce. Not anymore.

Since the discovery of crude oil however, agriculture has suffered serious neglect. Today, more than 80 per cent of the country's foreign exchange comes from oil alone. Agriculture has been relegated to the background, at great costs , and negatively impacting on the nation's capacity to create jobs, reduce poverty, increase productivity, diversify economy, achieve food security, and put the country on the path of sustainable development.

Recent estimates put the number of hungry people in Nigeria at over 53 million , which is about 30 per cent of the country's total population of roughly 150 million, while 52 per cent live under the poverty line. These are matters of grave concern largely because Nigeria was self-sufficient in food production and indeed a net exporter of food to other regions of the continent in the 1950s and 1960s. Things changed dramatically for the worse following the global economic crisis that hit developing countries beginning from the late 1970's onward. The discovery of crude oil and rising revenue from the country's petroleum sector encouraged official neglect of the agricultural sector and turned Nigeria into a net importer of food .

Although agriculture contributes 42 per cent of the country's GOP, provides employment and a means of livelihood [or more than 60 per cent of the productively engaged population, it receives less than 10 per cent of the annual budgetary allocations. Underfunding and misapplication of funds in this regard are central to the crisis of food production, and food security in Nigeria. It explains the persistence of poverty. The loss of food sovereignty and the dependence on food importation is also making the country quite susceptible to fluctuation s in global food crisis.

It was against this background that former President Olusegun Obasanjo in his characteristic manner of being blunt on issues penultimate week described as 'shameful,' the N 155billion the country spends on rice importation annually.

Speaking in a keynote address at the International' Conference' on Information Communication Technology for Africa 2011 ar ' . the Bells University, Ota, Ogun State, the former president said importation of food by Nigeria was condemnable in view of its vast arable land.

He noted that there was a disco nnection between food production and the nation's population , adding that nobody is too old , too educated, too sophisticated to go into farming and there ". ~ is no gender issue in farming . On the problems confronting the agricultural sector, Obasanjo explained that the need for a solution to be found in the areas of froanee . Describing funds needed in the sector as 'time-bound ', he said that processing; storage and.marketing were some of the problems confronting agricultural development in the country.

He said the country had been lucky among African nations to have two out of the five largest rivers in Africa- River Niger and River Benue. Ob,asanjo, who regretted that the nation had not taken adequate advantage of the two rivers, also observed that there was poor management of water for food production.

"About a week ago, l read that the country imported N155billion worth of rice which is more than investing $ 1bn on rice. In a country of over 100 million people and with the kind of. arable land we have, where there is nowhere we cannot plant rice, it is shameful to invest such an amount of money on rice importation. If we take all our money from oil to import food, then we are impoverislling the nation, our children and children yet unborn. We have arable land, but we should know that the land will not grow food no matter how fertile it is except we prepare the land to grow food. If we don 't till the arable land it will only produce weeds:' he lamented . .

While Nigerians are still pondering on Obasanjo's lamentation, the outgoing governor of Kwara State, Dr. Bukola Saraki , last week corroborated the revelation. Speaking in Chatham

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With over 79 million hectares of arable ___:Jm1d;diversifiea:-ecol()~ca1 conditions, abundant water resources and adequate rainfall, should Nigeria spend over $4billion annually on food importation.

This was the thrust of the speeches by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State at two different fora recently.

House, London when he made a presentation on the experience

of the Zimbabwean farmers in his state, Saraki told the audience that over $4billion was being spent annually on food importation in the country. He said from the experience of the Zimbabwean farmers in the country, a dramatic increase in farm yields has been produced and new jobs have been created, modem agricultural skills are being transferred to the local farmers., while economic activities are picking up in the host community. He disclosed that the agriCUltural sector offers Nigeria the best opportunity for gri)wth and development.

The governor who spoke on ' a paper titled: "Zimbabwean Farmers and Agriculture Innovations in Nigeria ," noted that Nigeria can become self-sufficient in food production within five years and save funds if it modernises farming and embraces commercial agriCUlture. For him, the country has all it takes to be an agricultural powerhouse. He wondered why a country as blessed with over 79 million hectares of arable land, diversified ecological conditions, abundant water resources and adequate . ~. ~ fai nfall , should not be a net exporter of food. According to him, not even the European Union region , which is the world-leading exporter of food and Califorrtia, also one of the world 's largest producers and exporters of food, are as blessed as Nigeria in Cenns of these resources.

According to him , spending $4billion annually on food imports was misplaced. This is despite the fact that it has clear comparative advantage in agriculture, and despite the fact that more than 70 per cent of the popUlation engages in farming.

DAVIDSON IRIEKPEN writes

While comparing the country with Western world , he stressed that while only about five per cent of the population of the Western World engage in agriCUlture and produces enough for domestic consumption and export, the same cannot be said about Nigeria where over 60 per cent does not yet there is still hunger in the land. . s a leader who was determined to give his people means of livelihood and generate wealth for them, one of the crucial ways of achieving that was through agriculture. Besides, it was to help reduce the state government's over reliance on monthly subventions from the federation account to conduct the affairs of governance.

As an entrepreneur and savvy administrator, the governor early into his administration, realised that one way to get his people out of poverty was through agriculture. He did not waste time in introducing the Back-ta-Farm scheme. The goal of this scheme w2S to substantially expand the area under cultivation and increase yield per hectare through deployment of modem farming techniques and appropriate incentives . Using the existing Ministry of Agriculture, the governor mobilised farmers in the state and provided them with credit facilities, seedlings, cherrticals, fertilisers and extension services . More than a thousand farmers participated in this programme, with an additional路 1600 hectares brought under cultivation across the state.

However, the result from the pilot scheme did not justify the .hope, tile effort and the resources invested in it. There were

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some marginal improvements, but yield per hectare was still, abysmally low, the best ranging from one to two metric tonnes per hectare. The reason for this was that most of the old and uneducated farmers were resistant to change. They used little or no fertiliser, and seemed stuck to their old famling methods.

It also discovered that most of the farmers saw the credit given to them as political largesse - their own share of government money-and had no intention of repaying, and no commitment to getting results. On their part, government officials that were asked to supervise the farmers either had little capacity for the work or were more interested in bel ping themselves.

The success of this experiment was put at about 14 per cent.

This of course is the story of the sector in the country today.

In 2005 , Saraki invited some displaeed Zimbabwean farmers who were evicted from their farms by the Robert Mugabe's obnoxious land reform policy in Zimbabwe to lend their expertise to commercial farming in the country under the Commercial Farming Initiative. The goal, according to the governor, was to use the farmers to kick-start Nigeria's moribund agricultural sector and generate for his people.

Today, he maintained that the real impact of the partnership with the Zimbabwean farmers is its demonstration effect.

Justifying the initiative, Saraki noted that, "Our farming sector is largely driven by peasant farming . And small family groups don't have the capital for mechanised farming or tlle ability to raise credit from banks. We need to have commercial farmers

Monday, May 23, 2011

THIS DAY, Vol. 15, No. 5873, Page 25

FEATURES

If we take all our money from oil to import food, then we are)impoverishing the nation, our children and children yet unborn. We have arable land, but we should know that the land will not grow food no matter how fertile it is except we prepare the land to grow food. If we don't till the arable land it will only produce weeds

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do that."

As a person who studJed the sector carefully, the governor said one major reason why the country lag behind in agriculture is under-cultivation: "only about 44 per cent of the total arable land is presenlly under cultivation. Anotiler is low yield: yield per hectare in Nigeria is roughly about 25 per cent of the global average . The major challenge , however, is that fanning is largely practiced at subsistence level and mosll y 'undertaken by smallholding , uneducated and agi ng farmers. In Nigeria today, agriculture is still characterised by "inefficient and outmoded production techniques, low qUality of produce, heavy post-harvest'losses , limited access to mechanisation and quality inputs, limited value-addition , and limited facilities for credit, irrigation, storage, processing and extension services." oday, the thineen Zimbabwean farmers , who now see themselves as tile New Nigerian Farmers, have fully setlied down in Shonga for full-scale commercial farming operations. Incorporated under the narne, Shonga Farms Holding Limited as a special purpose vehicle to finance the operations of the farms, the farmers according to Saraki are doing tremendously well . Under a 25-year renewable lease, each of the 13 commercial farmers was allccated 1000 hectares of land.

This is a total of 13,000 hectares of land to be put to use under the most modem of farming methods and techniques.

Activities in the farms are built around three clusters: Poultry Fanning, Dairy Farming and Mixed Fanning. The farmers produce milk and other dairy products, poultry meat, and commercial crops such as maize, cassava, rice, banana, soybeans, and ginger. Operations commenced in 2005.

Reeling how the audacious move has helped the economically, the Kwara state out-going governor said the Shonga · •• ~ experiment bas changed tbe face of fanning in the state and . yielded multiple dividends for the state and its citizens.

According to him , for one, there has been considerable improvement in yields. For example, while the national yield for cassava is 12 to l5 metric tonnes per hectare, yield on the

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S honga Fanns ranges from 25 to 50 metric lannes per hectare.

Also, wh ile the traditional Fulani caule can produce an average of five liters of milk per day, the Jersey cattle on the Shonga Farms produces about 15 liters a day, an mount doubling and tripling of yields has implication for poverty reduction, national productivity, food security, knowledge transfer and job creation, especially when further replicated and scaled up .

He also disclosed that the Shonga Farms has the capacity to process 12 million broiler chickens per annum, 2,500 processed chicken per day, and 50, 000 litres of milk per day; supplies chicken to the neWly-opened Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in Lagos; banana to Shoprite, a retail store in Lagos; and 2500 liters of fresh milk per day to Friesland WAMCO , Nigeria's leading producer of pasteurised milk. During harvest season, about 3000 to 4000 people are employed on the farms at a rate far above what the government pays. ''Today, Kwara State has become the centre of commercial agriculture in Nigeria and is showing the way for others to follow, including the federal government, which has adopted some of our policies . I am confident that my successor as governor will consolidate on the gains of these initiatives. While it is tempting to see our experiment with commercial agricultUIe only in terms of farms and food (and associated benefits) , I want to argue that it is much more than that. At its core, it is aJso a search for a sustainable model of development at the sub-nationalleve!'

"One model of administration at the sub-national level is to dutifully wait for monthly allocations from the Federation Account and disburse down tbe line. Except the state is one of the highly resourced states (either on account of being endowed with oil or of being an industrial centre), monthly allocations and internally generated revenue would only be e:1ough to pay salaries and fix a few roads, classrooms and hospitals. The other model is to see the state more as an active agent of development, and less as a disbursement conduit. This model favours leveraging active and dormant resources to grow the productive base of tile state economy and wean it of over-dependence on transfers. " In searching for how to tackle the problem of endemic poverty in our state, we embraced the second mode!. Rather

than throw up our hands in despair or just choose'to muddle through, we challenged ourselves to create a competitive edge out of our state's comparative advantage. It is stiU an unfolding story, and we made some false starts, but in true entrepreneurial spirits, we were not afraid of thinking big or taki ng risks , and that has made all the difference .

"We believe that development is not a self-occurring phenomenon , but the product of deliberate policy, with the state playing a leading role as an enabler. This is why in our experiment with commercia1 agriculture and other development initia-

tives, we chose to strategically partner with the private sector. In the past, when it was fashionable for the state to occupy the commanding heights of the economy, the government wou ld have gone into commercial agriculture directly through establishment of plantations ·and agro-allied companies. rom experience, we know that would have been a wrong-headed approach because we do not have the resources and expertise to run such endeavours and because the landscape is still littered with the carcasses of state-owned enterprises. But whi le we favo ured the PPP model , we were also mindful of the fact thatlhis approach could only work when the state provides tbe enabling and the regulatory environment and when alongside public value, a private value is also created to attract and sustain the interests of the individuals and companies involved .

"I believe the future of Africa lies in developing enterprises that can simultaneously create jobs and wealth. Dependence on mineral extraction will not take us up the development ladder.

Also, handouts and aids will not lift Africa out of poverty.

Development partners and .the developed world can meaningfully partner with us in our renewed search for growth and development by providing long-term , concessionary loans and technical expertise, by making Significant investments across the value chain in schemes such as the one in Shonga, and by removing farm subsidies and other trade impediments that 'undermine the competitiveness of agriculturill goods from Africa in the domestic and international markets:' Saraki emphasised.

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