IITA, AFDB target massive rice cultivation in Nigeria

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the Africa Development Bank (ADB) are joining forces to ensure making Nigeria totally free from rice importation that is gulping billions of naira annually thereby striking her name away from the list of countries in the continent that import huge amount of this produce.

These international organizations are targeting Nigeria through a project tagged “ Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops in Africa”  instituted to help boost production of cassava, maize, rice and wheat in African countries.

In a workshop organized at IITA, Ibadan, the project coordinator Dr. Chrys Akem, said Nigeria has been slated to immensely benefit in the international project meant to stimulate massive production for local and export markets in rice and othercrops which the present administration has already embarked upon through the Agricultural Transformation Agenda adding that “The major objective is to ensure food and nutritional security. Another aim is to raise the income level of the farmers so as to better their livelihood”

He added “ At inception in 2013, our modest goal was to attain 20 per cent yield increase in each of the communities we are working midway into the project, we realized that in some of the communities, we were way ahead of doubling that yield increase. When the project began, wheat yield increase was 1.5 tons per hectare. Today, the yield increase is between five to seven tons per hectare across given regions”

“Nigeria is at the top of countries that import rice but this project is equally aimed at improving rice production in the country and putting a stop to rice importation. If we keep producing at the level we are now, we will not reach the level we aspire to achieve food security.

“We are introducing mechanization and start production in larger areas. We have imported a lot of machines from Asia for cultivation and threshing. Once we are able to train the local artisans to produce massively, Nigeria will become a rice exporting nation.”

Action Aid, farmers frown at agric budget cut

A None Governmental Organization called Action Aid together with practicing farmers in the country have berated the declining budgetary allocation to agricultural sector saying the downward review would negatively impacted on the development of the food sufficiency and security.

It is noted that the present administration is being rated by some Nigerians as the best performing government in agriculture compared to other regimes in the past, but Action Aid, Nigeria and other stakeholders seem to take a different views based on declining budgetary allocations to the sector in the past three years.

A recent report on the 2015 agriculture sector budget analysis by Action Aid indicates that budgetary allocation to agriculture fell from 1.7% of the national budget in 2013 to 1.44% in 2014 and further declined to 0.9% in 2015.

The report made available to our reporter by the Food and Agriculture Program Advisor of Action Aid Nigeria, Azubike Nwokoye, stated that “the very low allocations remained consistently meagre, not meeting 10% Maputo Declaration in Malabo on agriculture and food security.”

The report further stressed that annual allocations to agriculture “are insufficient to galvanise growth and development impact intended through ECOWAP/CAADP, the National Agricultural Investment Plan (NAIP) or the current Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA).”

It also analysed that from 2011 – 2015 the federal government’s agriculture budget allocations have been less than 2% annually. 2015 allocation, which is a paltry 0.9% as it was stated “makes mockery of the government naming the 2015 budget as a ‘Budget of Transition and Hope”

“The situation is always further exacerbated with low quality of spending in general as well as low budget utilization of yearly allocated budgets across States,” the report maintained.

The report noted that out of the total of N39,151,988,128 budgeted for agriculture in 2015,  total capital budget is just 17.7% (N6,944,000,000), while the total recurrent is 82. 3% (N32,207,988,128). Action Aid described the situation as unacceptable as it means that what gets to support the smallholder farmers who sustain the sector will be ‘quite abysmal’.

Action Aid urged the government to dedicate 10% of the total budget to agriculture especially now that oil prices are falling and give more attention to the smallholder farmers, especially women and youths.

The group also called on the agriculture ministry to create a forum for the participation of smallholder farmers and Civil Society Organizations in the budgetary processes for ‘ownership and in order to also inform articulate priorities’.

Other stakeholders in the agriculture sector including the President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Architect Kabiru Ibrahim and former President of the Fisheries Society of Nigeria (FISON), Dr. Abba Y. Abdullah, who spoke to our reporter on the issue, maintained that the annual agriculture budget was low and urged the government to comply with the 10% Maputo commitment.

Farmers demand Bt Cotton to attract dollars

There are strong indications that Nigeria may lose out in the race for foreign exchange earnings accruable from exportation of the agricultural biotechnology cotton simply known as Bt cotton, which some African countries are already reaping from.

This is as a result of complaints by cotton farmers, especially in Northern Nigeria, that they have been recording low yield and are currently farming without gain. This development, the farmers said, is already forcing many of them to shift to the cultivation of other crops and may finally abandon cotton farming. 

One of the farmers, Malam Kabiru Shehu, said he got little from the cotton he planted last year and has decided to shift to maize and guinea corn in order to generate more income.

“We have been farming cotton because we inherited it. I can no longer continue farming cotton at a loss. I will now cultivate maize, guinea corn and other crops to get enough money to take care of my family and pay other bills,” Shehu disclosed. 

He added that the country’s cotton output will continue to drop drastically if high yielding, pest and disease resistant variety such as the Bt cotton is not quickly adopted by Nigeria and made available to cotton farmers.

Reports indicate that the Bt cotton, which is genetically modified by agricultural biotechnologists to confer on it some advantages such as bollworm resistance and high yield, is being embraced by Burkina Faso, Senegal, Kenya and Mali, among other African countries for some years now, but Nigeria is yet to see the need to join the race.

This year makes the eightieth that Burkina Faso’s farmers will be cultivating Bt Cotton and they have benefited significantly from it. This is not the case with Nigerian cotton farmers as their contribution to the country’s GDP dropped significantly from 25 per cent in 1980 to only five per cent in recent times.

Available data on benefits from Bt cotton in Burkina Faso include an average yield increase of almost 20%, plus labour and insecticide savings (2 rather than 6 sprays), which resulted in a net gain of about US$95.35 per hectare compared with conventional cotton.

It is estimated that Bt cotton has the potential to generate an economic benefit of up to US$70 million per year for Burkina Faso.  Other African countries that have adopted the Bt cotton are also earning millions of dollars from the crop.

Analysts maintain that Bt cotton can provide solution to the challenges faced by Nigerian cotton farmers, but government apathy for agricultural biotechnology promotion has led to non-existence of bio-safety laws in the country, and this has remained a serious impediment over the years. 

“If not until proper laws and regulations are put in place, Nigeria will continue to be flooded with GM foods, even as the country is losing a lot of foreign exchange by not adopting Bt cotton and other GM crops,” Mr. Kehinde Johnson, a Business Development Manager with Monsato International maintained.

An agricultural biotechnology expert, who is the Country Coordinator of Open Forum On Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) in Nigeria, Mrs. Rose M. Gidado, pointed out that the major obstacle to the release and commercialization of agricultural biotechnology crops including the Bt cotton in the country is  bio-safety law.

“Our farmers need to use GM crops including the Bt cotton if not, they will continue to record low yield due to pests, disease and other factors,” she said.

Another expert who is a plant breeder with the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR),  Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Malam Muhammad Lawan Umar, said cotton farmers and the country at large stand to benefit a lot from the export of cotton if Bt cotton can be adopted.

He said the Bt cotton is safe and capable of improving yield, income and livelihood of cotton farmers and urged the government to work out modalities to introduce the crop so as to assist the farmers and the nation as well.

Reports indicate that the bio-safety bill, which has been lying at the National Assembly for several years, has been passed by the law makers and signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan at the dying minutes of his administration. 

Now that the major obstacle to the application of agricultural biotechnology in Nigeria has been removed, the next hurdle is the time it will take the country to adopt Bt cotton and other GM crops so as to boost production and export.

Inputs: Oyo farmers pray for Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide

 The farmers in Oyo state have specially prayed for the Minister of State, FCT, Oloye, Olajumoke Akinjide for her untiring support through agricultural inputs’ supply despite the outcome of the election in the state whereby her party did not get the expected result.

Speaking at the event organized for the handing over of the agricultural inputs bought by the Olajumoke foundation for farmers, the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) chairman, Oyo state chapter, Engr. Olumide Ayinla said they were so grateful for her magnanimous character of always willing to help the grassroot producers adding “ she is one human being with large heart despite the recent election in the state which does not turn out as expected, one would have thought she would have been tired but rather it was another surprise of input support she is giving to farmers, this is a true reflection of the love for farmers”. Despite all odds based on the last political incidence, she can still remember farmers in term of empowerment. She really deserve prayers”

Oloye Olojumoke Akinjide’s passion for the eradication of poverty among the poor is being executed according to her Special Assistant, Agric, Dr. Oyeleke through the minister’ foundation, and it has helped so many farmers’ groups in the state with fertilizers, improved seeds, chemicals and tractors for mechanized farming towards ensuring growth from subsistence to commercial agriculture adding that training on improved technologies is part of the services rendered for farmers in the state.

Speaking on the occasion, one of the foundation officials, Madam Nancy Nathan said the purpose of the meeting was to carry out the usual train the trainers’ exercise that is always conducted at the beginning of every planting season so as to ensure maximum yield during harvest saying “this is always the wish of the minister for the farmers”.

In the same vein, Dr. Shuiab in his demonstration of using improved inputs of farming for better yield enjoined the farmers to embrace these new technologies pointed that the adoption of them would make their produce more competitive in the market in terms of price adding any maize affected by aflatoxin is not always marketable.

Dr. Shuiab emphasized on the techniques of inter cropping for maximum yield on a piece of land therebyenjoined the farmers to cultivate the habit of going to the right source for their improved seeds, chemicals and fertilizer so as to avoid buying fake or adulterated ones.

On the occasion the women groups of the farmers in the state got the Federal government tractor allocation on behalf of all farmers and the minister had already paid N7.5 million as pay down for her own support.