Agriculture: State of Emergency, a mere noise say stakeholders

* Minister states achievement 

The state of emergency declared on Agriculture about a year ago by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ( BAT) has received serious batching for not being able to check challenges inherited from the past administrations as promised. Although the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security ( FMAFS) Sen. Abubakar Kyari was on the contrary while reeling out the FG achievements as regards the sector.

Stakeholders who spoke with us argued that almost one year after President Tinubu 's emergency declaration on the food system, nothing concrete has changed against the old narrative of poor performance of the sector in terms of food security as prices continues to escalate beyond the reach of Nigerians.

The general complaint by Nigerians on the hike in food prices was well confirmed by the National Bureau of Statistics ( NBS) who stated that the cost of food in Nigeria increased by 40.53 percent in April 2024 over the same month of the previous year.

Stakeholders pointed out  that the much mouthed emergency which resulted into changing the Agric Ministry into the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security ( FMAFS) has not attended to food insecurity as expected in view of the challenges the sector is facing with unstoppable increase in prices of food items.

Mr. Kola Adeniji, a very popular youth farmer especially in cassava value chain identified challenges like low productivity, limited access to modern technologies, climate change impact and inadequate infrastructure with insecurity preventing farmers access to farm cum rural urban migration as what the government should have taken very seriously towards food security.

Kola pointed out that research and extension services should be taken also seriously in order to tackle food insecurity and hike in prices, adding that policies bottleneck was also a great hindrance to the food productivity system.

A professor of agronomics speaking under anonymity described access to technologies from the universities and National Research Institutes as a serious challenge saying funding, and lateness in the release of approved budgets to executive programs have become a frequent occurrence. 

Another agric professor queried the emergency declaration based on no impact when it comes to the adoption of irrigation practice in view of climate change and delayed in rainy season saying how can the prices of food be reduced in the absence of all these with poor extension services all over the country.

Although he admitted the effort ongoing in the repositioning of the Agricutural extension policy towards achieving commercial agriculture towards best agronomics practices but added until all these begin to work " nobody will take the emergency declaration very serious" 

Another PhD who just wanted to be identified as a stakeholder called the  attention of Foodfarmnews to inputs distribution of the last dry season farming especially in the North where billions of Naira were spent by the Government without nothing substantial coming of the venture, adding that the successful outcome of the dry season farming would have positively affected hike in the food prices if the program had been well implemented.

Our anonymous pointed out that apart from the climate change negative impact of excessive warmer weather on the crops' cultivation especially wheat, the challenge of round tripping of inputs through political farmers was a snag that the emergency declaration would have prevented.

He argued further that he expected the aspect of risk management of the dry season farming to be well considered in view of enough warning on excessive warmer weather by the World Meteorological Agency, adding that the Nigerian Agricutural Insurance Corporation ( NAIC) should have been well involved to reduce losses for farmers through effective policy.

Also an official report by some scientists on the last dry season performance on wheat in view of importation to meet local inputs demand has reflected very poor production performance which in economic terms was a loss to the country and a pointer to scarcity of wheat at the nip of time.

Another stakeholder who also preferred not to be mentioned from the fertilizer sub sector frowned at low application of fertilizer that was less than 20tons per hectare as against the Africa Heads of state stipulation of 60 tons, adding that the appropriate quantity use of fertilizer is very important to food security.

Although all the positions seemed to have an answer from the FG through the Minister of Agriculture who speaks on the economic returns of the last dry season farming, and other areas of impact government has made to ensure food security.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security ( FMAFS) Sen. Abubakar Kyari at the ministerial press briefing held this week Monday in Abuja reported an estimated value of  N309 billion from the harvested wheat during the last dry season farming, added that the generated income has been injected back into the economy as being directed by President Tinubu.

Kyari disclosed that the FG launched the dry season farming programme with the cultivation of 118,657 hectares of wheat in 15 states to ensure acceleration of all-year-round farming towards surplus availability to Nigerians.

He stated that “ We import 6,750 seeds of wheat from Mexico, and get about 5,500 seeds procured locally. The harvest we have realised had an estimated value of about N309B that has been injected back into the economy”

Kyari dwelt on Mr. President's marching order on the strengthening of mechanization in Nigeria through procurement of 10,000 tractors that will be distributed across the local government of the federation saying a Memorandum of Understanding ( MOU ) has been effected to achieve it with John Deere and other foreign organizations.

The minister stated that in response to the presidential directive, the FMAFS released 42,000 metric tonnes of assorted food commodities from the FG’s strategic grain reserves to the National Emergency Management Agency for distribution to Nigerians to cushion food inflation effects.

On measures taken to curb food inflation, the Minister said that farmers were given inputs saying “ Distribution of 60,432MT of improved seeds, 887,255MT seedlings, 138 value kits, 501,726 litres of agrochemicals, 62,328.5MT of inorganic fertilizers, 1,000kg fungicide, and 33,200 equipment to farmers across different value chains to enhance production"

“The ministry received 2.15 million bags of fertilizer from the Central Bank of Nigeria for distribution to farmers free of charge. There was an improvement of farmland security with the provision of additional resources to Agro Rangers and other security agencies.”

On livestock production and animal health, the minister said his ministry procured and distributed 14,056,467 doses of anthrax spore, foot and mouth diseases vaccines for risk-based vaccination exercises in 22 high-risk states located in the North-Central, North-West, North-East, South-West and South-South zones of the country.

“ We handed over to 15 state governments 760 tonnes of poultry feed and 70 tonnes of ruminant feed for distribution to small holder farmers and the implementation of the National Livestock Development Plan on the promotion of grazing reserves and ranching nationwide"  Kyari stated