Effective Laws, Key To Quality Fertilisers

Fertilisers

In recent times, the call for the urgent development of the nation’s agriculture as a guarantee to food security and economic empowerment stresses the need for an effective law in the development of the nation’s fertilizer systems. Ruth Tene Natsa writes on the need to ensure effective laws to promote quality fertilizers.


The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines fertiliser as a substance put on the soil to make plants grow.  Experts, however, have identified types of fertilisers to include both organic and inorganic with the aim of ensuring the soil gets its required nutrients to ensure maximum yields.

Unfortunately, there is no doubt that Nigerian farmers are challenged by the high levels of corruption linked to fertiliser distribution (as is obvious in a situation where a farmer purchases a bag of fertiliser mixed with stones), high cost of the product, lack of capacity  on usage, inability to detect and know what brand best suits a farmer’s soil, a poor and nearly non existing extension service as well as the poor policing of the nation’s fertiliser systems among several others.

Another key challenge to the Nigerian agricultural development has been attributed to lack of access to quality and affordable fertiliser which as a result leads to low yields and ultimately becomes a loss to the farmers’ investments and efforts.

Also, the low literacy levels of farmers  as well as lack of access to quality extension services also denies farmers the requisite use of fertilisers which is aimed at enhancing their production and as a result the use of certain fertilisers could become perils to their production.

While stakeholders are aware of these challenges, they lack the capacity to demand a reprieve and  ensure that they are protected from the seeming challenges of these issues. The ultimate implication has been the poor investment in the nation’s agricultural services, the high imports of agricultural products incurring huge import’s bills and denying the nation of huge economic benefits, collapse of the nation’s agricultural services as a result of the ageing population of farmers, youthful drudgery in the sector and ultimately the poor food security, despite the emerging and increasing population of the world among several others.

The chairman, Technical Committee on Fertiliser, Prof Victor Chude, said that a major challenge to effective and quality fertiliser in Nigeria is the absence of a law or legal backing to protect farmers and ensure quality fertilisers from the greedy corrupt practices of sharp fertiliser dealers. He, however, assured that the present administration was struggling to see that the challenge is effectively tackled.

Meanwhile, the United States Aid (USAID)/Nigerian Mission director, Michael Harvey, said, “Nigeria’s agriculture is simply not  producing enough food as a result of the poor fertiliser systems,” opining that the nation’s poor fertiliser system is the reason for the high imports which Nigeria and Africa as a whole could not afford, especially with the foreseen increasing population.

Speaking with journalists during the 2nd Fertiliser Stakeholders  Summit in Abuja, recently, he said that the summit was an attempt under the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission to bring together key players from West Africa to talk about boosting fertiliser usage and facilitating increasingly the supply of fertilisers to farmers in the region.

He noted that the urgency for the forum is from the fact that Nigeria is not producing enough food and thereby forced to import, adding that the forum was aimed at combatting that. He said that the forum has drawn attention to the often overlooked, yet crucial role fertiliser play in enhancing agricultural productivity  for improved food security and poverty alleviation in West Africa.