Stakeholders lament non-mechanization of agriculture

Stakeholders at a meeting organized by the National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization (NCAM) have lamented the sorry state of agriculture in Nigeria due to non-mechanization and continuing subsistence practice instead of commercialization.

The Executive Director, NCAM Engr. (DR) Yomi kasali bewailed the attitude of government to mechanization development through almost non-patronage of locally fabricated simple tools and machines meant to help remove drudgery being faced by small scale farmers.

While frowning at tractor importation that did not consider future repairs/maintenance and availability of spare parts even as there were scarcity of drivers for tractors, Engr. kasali stated that ‘’ the state government have penchant for imported machineries even without recourse to the Centre that was mandated to regulate imported machineries and also certify same for suitability to Nigerian agricultural clime.’’

Continuing, he said: “these imported machineries are subjected to variation in temperature (from temperate region to tropical regions) thus leading to their breaking down in a very short time. Furthermore, they were imported without taking into consideration the availability of spare parts. It is in these areas that local technologies have an edge over imported machineries’’ adding that ‘’ patronage of indigenous technologies will also bring about employment generation, create new innovations and help the sector to grow to international standard.’’

Engr. kasali posited that had the government given sufficient support to agricultural mechanization it would encourage fabrication of the prototype machines and,  later mass production can be easily accessed through subsidy and installation of necessary engineering infrastructure, saying that ‘’ for private sector to come into equipment production, there is need for good environment for mass production. For example the stainless steel to commercially mass produce frying cassava machine is very expensive’’.

The Executive Director, National Agricultural Extension Research Liaison Office (NAERLs) Prof. Mohammed Uthman said the use of mechanization to reduce drudgery in agricultural practices was still very low due to  economic, political and institutional reasons saying that ‘’ mechanization is yet to receive attention in the country.’’

Prof. Uthman who was represented by Professor . Yusuf Abdullahi said that effort of the Federal Government (FG) to introduce Tractor Hiring Service Centre had not yielded any result due to non affordability by small scale farmers cum availability, adding that inconsistency in the government policies had not also helped in the development of agriculture in the country.

The NAERLS boss stressed the need to control tractor importation for the purpose of local development in terms of simple tools and machines through the public/private partnership with research institutes linkage saying more funding should be provided for research and extension.

Contributions from other programme managers and extension officials expressed lack of funding for the ADPs since the departure of the World Bank stressed that none motivation and replacement of retired workers with new ones were great impediment to getting new innovations and technologies from research Institutes to farmers.

The stakeholders who were made up of managers, extension officers, researchers, engineers and farmers across the states of the federation including Federal Capital Territory (FCT) decried the lip service of the government to agriculture and described the importation of tractors into the country as being very retrogressive to our development in terms of job creation, something, which they said had negatively affected transfer of new innovations from research institutes to the market.

The chairman, Nigerian Cassava Grower Association (NCGA), Kwara state , Mr.G.O Fasanu pointed out that the inputs subsidy to farmers must be extended to mechanization as government agricultural programme must be tailored to integrate the use of simple tools and machines at a very affordable price to small scale farmers.

Also the All farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) representative, Mr. David Ayan encouraged NCAM not to relent in its training mandates saying improved technologies from other countries must be well replicated in Nigeria for farmers’ adoption.