Editorial- Reducing costs in farming

Apart from the pain many farmers go through in land clearing and cultivations for crops planting, the end results of the labour, most times, do not justify the means as production cost would have eroded the profit margin expected to be made, thereby making the occupation very unattractive to many, especially the youths.

The introduction is understandable when one compares the tonnage a farmer in Nigeria can get per hectare of land (two to three tons) to what his counterpart in India, Brazil and America gets in terms of grains and in whatever agricultural produce ( at 15 to 16tons).

The high cost of agricultural inputs coupled with low impact of extension services and poor agronomic practices resulting in low harvest are things of concern in this particular piece that we strongly believe could be an area the government should seriously look into as a way to give support to the farmer towards cost of production mitigation to help for agriculture commercialization and competitiveness.

We are very much aware of government-supplied fertilizer which have not been well-received by most farmers who claimed they could not access it, but ended up buying agro inputs of seeds, fertilizers and chemical at  very exorbitant rates. These are in addition to the challenges of fakery that had engulfed the sectors, which of course the recently enacted acts signed President Mohammadu Buhari for both fertilizer and seeds industry are meant to overtly checkmate as fund are adequately released for effective monitoring and implementation.

No doubt, a lot must have been spent by the time a land is cleared and cultivated through paid human labour coupled with purchase of seeds and fertilizer application to get maximum yield and harvest only to be confronted by the falling prices of produce, as it happened with maize price dropping from N150, 000 to N65, 000 per 100kg at a point. The same applies to cowpea, millet, rice melon, sorghum, soya-bean, onions etc.

The state governments’ not funding extension services has a great negative impact in terms of technologies transfer and best agronomics practice and poor management of the farms which impact negatively on cost of production in terms of low harvest.

But how has government been able to mitigate this cost of production in the midst of dilapidated infrastructure like rural feeder roads and the rest, like electricity availability and security for both farmers and the farms from being destroyed or crops eaten up by herdsmen cow without any compensation.

In developed countries, apart from superior conventional ways of farming that make their produce more competitive in the markets, the government is very responsive by mopping up the excess when there is glut in order to encourage farmers, this we totally lack in this our clime.

We highlighted all these to draw the attention of government at all strata to the need to provide sufficient support that would make production very competitive for farmers, considering the unabated increase in population and the need for food production to feed ourselves round the years.

There is need for a programme that will directly target the farmers through structured associations that can be held accountable for all the government interventions, and this is more of the reason why the authority must be very concerned about the existence and operation of some of these associations like All farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) and Federation of Commodity Associations of Nigeria (FACAN) domiciled in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (FMITI).

Although we will like to commend the new Minister of Agriculture, Alhaji Sabo Nanono for promising to positively affect the lives of farmers through working with the apex farmers’ association, we will advocate that the farmers be well documented scientifically with areas of farms and locations in order to detect fake ones among them.