Farmers want 20% of 2015 budget for agric development- AFAN President

The agricultural challenges are enormous and proactive steps have to be taken for radical challenge according to the President, All Farmers’ Association of Nigeria, Architect Kabiru Ibrahim who is asking the Federal Government to allocate 20% of the 2015 total budget of Four trillion naira to agricultural development that will give research, power and processing zone a right of place to economic development. Read his Excerpts below.

Let us meet you sir.

My name is Architect Kabiru Ibrahim, the President, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN)

How is AfAN under your leadership?

AFAN is strategizing to get government recognition. We think this new government can do much more things to Nigerians by paying serious attention to agriculture as it is very clear that oil is almost a curse to us as Nigeria. Of course we have abandoned everything else and concentrate of oil. As you can see in the recent past we have had a problem of oil falling and becoming very uncertain as we had never had in the past. This has got negative effect on the current budget meaning our much reliance on oil has impacted negatively on all other sectors including agriculture. 

The only thing that we have that has kept us going even before oil was discovered is agriculture. So is just a question of restoring the dignity in the sector  by investing more, create a reliable environment for farmers to be able to improve their yield and be able to process their produce for market in a well packaged way rather than selling only at a primary form. We can only do this if there are accesses to finance with adequate funding of research so that farmers will be able to get improved inputs and access to land. You know there are a lot of innovations now in agriculture as you know what to plant and where a particular crop can have comparative advantages ecologically.

 You need to know the deficiency in a particular soil by introducing the nutrients that can complement the soil deficiency. You need to plant crops with high resistance to a particular climate change with a prolific seed that can make a farmer quickly get out from subsistence farming to commercial. With this, the country can become food secured and exporter of her produce. All these can be possible if we allowed Maputo declaration that says every signatory in African continent must devote 10% his annual budget to agriculture. We are even asking this government to dedicate 20% of its budget for two years to agriculture as it will tremendously help the sector as our budget stands at four trillion. 20% of 4 trillion multiply by 2 will give you 1.6 trillion which when properly deployed to developing agriculture will go a long way in creating processing zones that will be well powered by effective energy for processing and preservative of perishable produce for better market. Also there should be creation of parks where heavy duty tractors and combined harvesters are displayed for hiring to farmers.

 The idea of giving 2 -3 power horse tractors that the states are buying for farmers have shown that majority of these are sold out to the neighboring countries like Niger and Ghana just as some of the money injected into fertilizers are sham and fraud. For example if government put 3 billion naira in fertilizer procurement whereby about ten farmers will be asked to share a bag does not make any sense. It is a process that allows corrupt practices through connivers that always leads to inaccurate supply.

I want you to dwell more on these tractors that are being sold when given out to farmers, are we sure the farmers are real?

You see, our take in AFAN is that agriculture has crossed borders where your political inclination does not matter as long as you are a farmer. But when government in her wisdom decides to give out things based on political affiliation will also lead to sham as many of them sold out the tractors since they are not farmers. 

How structured is AFAN to close up this gap to ensuring effectiveness of whatever support government is giving as regards seeds, fertilizer, tractors etc?

We have always had the appropriate structures; AFAN is in every ward of the federation. We have chairmen in each local government, states and wards of the federation and all the government needs to do when she wants to distribute whatever inputs is to involve our members on the committee for effective monitoring of identifying real farmers so as to avoid the cases of meddle men. So we are well structured to do this. As I sit with you, I can call all my chairmen in all the states, and they will in turn call other chairmen at the local government and it can continue in this order down to the wards levels. 

If you look at Federal Government’s claim of 14 million farmers being reached to our compilation, you will agree with me that the number is too small compared to the population of farmers in Nigerial. Since I became the President of AFAN, I have asked all our states’ chairmen to bring all their registered farmers and what we are getting is quite impressive as an average of 600,000-700,000 from each state.

Some people are in the school of thought that government’s role should be limited to policy making while the aspect of buying and selling should be left with the private sectors, what is your take on that?

This should be the natural trend. The farmers choose to be a farmer by choice. So the government is just to give an enabling environment for farming to strive. As you put it yourself, good policy will help the system by making  farmers to farm appropriately by being about to choose comparative crops for farming with the necessary improved inputs that they can easy buy in the markets. 

The government tends to say that are subsidizing, but is there any such subsidy? It is the office people that are being subsidized not the farmers. In France for instance the farmers also play a part in the policy making as farmers’ population is about 3% of the total population, and there are lot of agricultural activities going on there with high level of food exports bringing money into the covers of the individual and governments. But here with population of farmers in the country, we can hardly feed ourselves talk less of exporting. But if government plays its part the way it should by providing appropriate level of power energy that will assist in processing of crops for better market, and also providing quality research that will give prolific seeds through thorough regulation with efficient soil information before planting. If you remember in the 60-70s, before the arrival of oil, the economy of Nigeria is driven by agriculture, and the arrival of crude oil has brought us to this mess.

Talking about finance, we have Bank of Agriculture (BOA) who is to deploy finance to farmers, how would you rate their performance?

You see the BOA concept is very good but the application is where I have reservation, while our farmers also are not helping matters by taking agriculture as business. Majority of them tend to think the borrowed money is free as they never bother to pay back this loan thereby denying many other farmers the opportunity of getting the money. This always brings back the issue of re financing of the bank because the money lends out is not paid back. Also you will recall the commercial agricultural loan which came up around 2009 that involved many commercial banks where many farmers benefitted but because of the low purchasing power of people, mindset of farmers, inefficient power energy and high cost of transportation, paying back become difficult. People who tampered with any government money should be made to pay penalty for doing so. But if they go scot free, then you cannot see any development in any sector. Also the BOA official must ensure qualification of farmers though due process before he or she can be given loan without needing to collect any note from the Minister or any other personality, and that is how a bank should work.

The ATA of this outgoing administration has claimed to be doing very well especially in area of inputs to farmers with food increase to 21 million metric tons in two years, what is your take on that?

It is very easy to make this claim that you have increased food production, but this should be associated with prosperity. If a farmer reduces twelfth of his production last year as result of not being able to sell what he has produced as a result of no market,  can that be called an increase in food production? Have you looked at the pocket of the farmers relatively to the purchasing power of the people? The fact is that the purchasing powers of Nigerians have reduced. Well I believe the fact are clearer now as the whole system has failed and this why many people are looking for this change. 

So if there was increase in food production as farmers are the largest population, so how come the change that swept this government aside? The increase is just rhetoric and it not real. If anybody is telling you farmers are making pumper harvest, I think they are making mistake as pumper harvest to farmers is being able to produce and sell, not production where buck of it are rotten away.

If you are being present before the senate as minister of agriculture, what are the defence you are going to make to promote agriculture as policy that will given a paradigm shift?

First we focus our investment in agriculture through our mind set. We do not necessary need to give direct money to farmers but through a well funding research that will assist farmers in terms of improved technologies and embracement of bio technology products to enhance crops and animal challenges as regards pest, diseases and drought. 

Take Burkina Faso for instance all the economy over there is completely funded by agriculture and this has happened because she has been able to adopt bio technology into agricultural system of the economy. I will advocate for a strategy where by comparative advantage crops on regional basis will be promoted with improved technology of research so that every region of our society will have what is best situated for it. Then you put in your energy to developing those crops in line with value chain production. In France I saw personally three segregated crops being planted in the three regions. While the corn is grown in the southern region, the North West plant soya beans and the other part grapes and all are doing well for the entire nation.

Let me have your word on mechanization tractorization of the federal government?

The concept as it is today is not worth it. 

You know if you are bringing these small tractors of two horse power and giving them to selected people, look they will not use them on their land as many of them sell it because they do not need it. Why should government be buying tractors every year? Because a tractor can be used for five years if well managed. What I am trying to say is that we should create parks for tractors where farmers can easily access varieties of tractors for clearing, ploughing and harvesters. For example if a group of farmers want to clear 1000 hectares, they can approach the park centres at an affordable price. 

This will be better than giving three or four horse power to a farmer who has no farm of his own. If you go to Ghana you will see some of these tractors that are sold there. A state in the North sometimes bought many of these small tractors, and many people given have sold them out to the neighbouring countries around. The Federal government tractorization of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development cannot work because of these smaller tractors. 

Anybody that want to do agriculture as business will have his own tractor, but what at AFAN level is doing is to ensure small scale farmers have access to these tractors through our groups. For agricultural commercialization to succeed, we need to emphasis on getting groups of farmers into groups to do mechanized farming.  This is what happens anywhere in the world. About fifty years ago in America, a large chunk of the population about 70% were farmers, but today you have a limited population, in France only 3% population are farmers who export sweet corn to other countries. All these sweet corn you see are from France.