‘NCAM have all categories of Equipments that meet the need of small scale farmers’

Engr. (Dr) M.Y Kasali, the Acting Executive Director (ED), National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization Centre (NCAM), Ilorin.

NCAM is a government owned centre with mandate to research into and produce machines for production and processing of crops. Having met this mandate successfully the acting executive director of the centre, Engr. M.Y.Kasali has called for more funding for it to really do more. Excerpts…

Can we meet you by way of introduction and your organization?

I am Engr. (Dr) M.Y Kasali, the Acting Executive Director (ED), National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization Centre (NCAM), Ilorin.

Just going through the line story of Science and Technology innovations of modern tools and machines available for the mitigation of drudgery always encounter by farmers in the agriculture productivity, your mandate came to mind, and this is why we are here to ascertain the level of your mandate towards ensuring availability of these tools and machines for the use of farmers. What is the level of impact you have been able to make to alley this drudgery in farming and agricultural production to attract both youths and women into farming in Nigeria?

NCAM as an Institute was established by decree number 35 of 1990, (now an Act of the National, and the mandate of the centre is firstly to research and innovate into indigenous technologies that will be used for farming system in the country. Secondly, it is established to conduct training of stakeholders in the agricultural sector. Thirdly, it has the mandate to certify and standardize agricultural equipment that is fabricated in the country and outside which are brought into the country through importation which we have to regulate. 

The fourth one is to collaborate with other Institutions by bringing into focus all technologies that have been developed by similar Institutions in Nigeria and collate them into the usage of the environment in order to access their performance. Now there are lot of simple, efficient and adaptable tools and machines the Centre has been able to adopt in order to reduce farmers’ drudgery in the past years, as one of our mandates is to ensure the efficiency of agricultural machines for productivity. Most of our machines are gender friendly whereby we put into consideration tools and machines that can be easily handled by both men and women with less stress. 

We have low cost machines like cassava peeling tool that can easily peel without sustaining any injury. We have cassava planters which is a tractor mounted that have the capacity of planting five hectares per day. It is a Brazilian type that has been adopted. There are multi- purposes thresher that can thresh different types of crops like cassava and the rest. We have cassava mounted harvester that can also uproot about five hectares per day. The rice trans- planter machine will soon be available as it is ongoing, and as soon as is completed, it will be tested and certified for commercialization. There are both the motorized ones and the manually pushed ones. Other equipment is yam planter which research is also on going. There also development of mini- tractor. We have developed the first ever- mini tractor in Nigeria which is called tricycle with 30 horse power (HP)machine. So this tricycle has arrays of implement that normally come along with any imported tractor. This tractor only cost N2.2 million as you are aware that the least imported ones with 5 horse power in Nigeria cannot be less than N8 million, and this amount is for the tractor alone without the implement. This adopted tricycle tractor with its tools and implement together is only N2.2 million which is very good and affordable for small holder farmers. We are now going into the second phase, which is four-wheel tractor which is also a mini tractor with 40 horse power (HP). It is already in progress, but not yet completed. All these will meet the need of small scale farmers in terms of affordability and efficiency.

This reflects that your centre is already addressing the issue of affordability by adopting simple tractor and equipment as highlighted above with the example of these tricycle and four wheel tractors? 

Yes we are already doing that, like I said all our products targets gender friendliness with availability to small, medium and large scale farmers. Also the rice trans planter is a need felt machine as government of the day is trying to checkmate rice importation with backward integration of local accelerated production to substitute import bill, and this has made us to focus on rice trans planter for rice cultivation, and you may know that the most tedious accept of this crop production is planting and harvesting. So we have concentrated on the mitigating the laborious aspect of planting with this motorized trans-planter is ongoing and almost getting to completion. Also rice harvest is another tedious aspect of the production with back ache occasioned by long bending. This has challenged us to fabricate a motorized hand reaper as we have adopted a mower to make the harvester. We are also producing a harvester you can push with a reservoir where your grains are stored. Now we want to replicate a foreign one that we will copy the design and fabricate it for use. All these are in a bit to mitigate drudgery being experienced by our small scale farmers to bring efficient and affordable simple machines for their use.

Who are you r partners in terms of getting efficient and simple equipment and machines for adoption?

In terms of funding or what?

No, not in terms of funding,  but ideas?

Although we have some challenges as our funding is dwindling, but not withstanding, we are partnering the Nigerian Association of Fabricators, that is why we always give them training's once or twice a year, together with our youths for the direct transfer of the new improved technologies to the farmers, one on one. 

The commercialization of this particular aspect of agricultural equipment is a very crucial issue based on the very low pace of returns like any fast business investors will like to take a risk. Most entrepreneurs find it difficult to embrace agricultural equipment manufacturing because there is a very low rate of returns due to farmers’ disposable income.

 Farmers have low disposable income, and an investor will like to put his money where there is a high return than production. As a result of low investment government needs to bridge the gap which I think is what is being done through the Bank of Industry to help the manufacturer/ entrepreneurs with loan support. The entrepreneurs need to be encouraged in agro-business because of the low return associated with sector as most people want quick money, and agricultural equipment does not fall into this category. So government needs to do more.

What about Government funding?

Let me commend the present administration for the budget increase given to capital project which has impacted positively in many aspects on the centers, but I advise that the research funding must be separated from the capital project so as to be able to access what has gone into research which is very small. Funding to research requires more for it to be very competitive and give efficient delivery. In essence what I am saying is that research funding must be separated from any other project. 

How have you been able to still surmount all these challenges and still have something to showcase?

Well, we are just trying to disseminate our technologies as our trainees are taught on direct meeting with the farmers so as to meet their needs in terms of simple tools and machines to reduce drudgery and increase production. We have been able to construct about 11 processing shelves across Kwara state as a pilot state. 

In Patigi, there is rice comparative advantage, so we have four processing shelves for complete processing of rice with machines and tools made available for off take. In Osi, Idofian, Ganmo, we have cassava processing shelves with all our processing machines and equipment displayed. All these are the ways we have been pushing out our technologies to farmers. In this year’s budget, government has made provision for some equipment that we will be produced and given out to farmers on subsidy. We are not going to take any money as government has already subsidized them, and we will distributed through the farmers’ association. 

Now what is your level of partnership with National Agriculture Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS)?

Definitely, we have our own extension division, but we are trying now to work with state Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs)to push out technologies. But you are aware that ADPs are poorly funded, and this itself is problem, so we have to just design a way of disseminating these technologies with ADPS by ways of funding some of them for what we want them to do for us. As our funding get improves, we will try as much as possible to work with NAERLS and the ADPs.

Finally, can you beat your chest in terms of NCAM machines quality to imported ones?

I will say yes in terms of durability, adaptability and efficiency, but our finishing may not be perfect or be as aesthetically good as the foreign ones, but the machines efficiency is very competitive and better than any other imported ones. We have tried to compare, and the result was in the favor of our machines especially our thresher will thresh very well with little or no chaff unlike the foreign ones where many are found that one still need to sieve. Also, sometimes, the quality in terms of longevity is not so good. 

The ones from China were not properly welded. They were only tacked, not welded. For example the Jigawa people were saying the machine they bought two years ago from China are damaged, and the reason is because they are not properly welded. I agree we still need to do more with our finishing.