Nigeria Spends $2.4bn On Rice Importation in 3 Years - Emefiele

The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, on Tuesday said the Federal Government spent $2.41 billion on rice importation between January 2012 and May 2015.

Mr. Emefiele made this known at a stakeholders' meeting with officials of Paddy Rice Producing states and Rice Value chain investors in Abuja.

He said the bank's decision to ban foreign exchange for importation of rice; fish and other items would not be reversed.

He said the Apex bank has no plans to reverse the ban, adding that the reason for inclusion of rice in the exclusion list was not far-fetched.

He said, "Figures available with the CBN show that from the period January 2012 to May 2015, the country had spent over 2.41bn dollars on importation of this commodity.
"Unfortunately, this trend has resulted in huge unsold stock of paddy rice cultivated by our farmers and low operating capacities of many integrated rice mills in Nigeria."

Mr. Emefiele said the CBN, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, would come up with a comprehensive financing model to support rice millers and other investors in the sector.

He said the bank decided to intervene in the sector through funding and other packages because the country would not achieve its true potentials if it imported everything it could produce locally.

He said, "the bank will make funds more accessible to farmers through some of its funding programme such as the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme and the N220bn Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Development fund.

"The funds will be made available to rice farmers through the Microfinance Banks at an interest rate of nine per cent and any bank that charges interest above that rate should be reported to the CBN
"We appeal to the state governments to provide lands for the farmers on a large scale and we will work with them to clear some of these impediments.

"We are at a stage where we must feed ourselves and all hands are on deck to ensure this work," he said.
The CBN boss said that those that defaulted in the payment of customs duty after bringing in excess quotas of rice into the country at concessionary rates would be penalised.

He said the CBN would take up the issue to the highest level in government to ensure that the money was paid.

"By exceeding their import quota, these importers have flooded the market with rice that is sold below what is produced locally thus, making consumers ignore the locally produced ones.

"We are going to enforce it and we will go to the highest level to enforce this to ensure that they pay and I appeal to them to go and pay," he added.

The governor also assured rice producers that the bank would work closely with the Nigerian Customs Service to address the issue of smuggling.
Also speaking, Governor Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi promised that everything would be done to support the CBN intervention.
 
Mr. Bagudu spoke on behalf of the 10 major paddy rice producing states, Kebbi, Kaduna, Katsina, Jigawa, Sokoto, Ebonyi, Taraba, Zamfara, Nasarawa and Niger.
He said the states had enough capacity to produce rice that would help the country attain self sufficiency as well as for export purpose.

He also assured producers that they would expand infrastructure, as well as provide the right atmosphere for people to invest in rice farming. 

 

Sonny Echow, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the ministry was making plans to intervene in rice production in the coming season.

"We are proposing to the CBN to help us set up a fund for rice millers for our rice farmers.
"We will be making that recommendation to the CBN to facilitate a long term fund," he said.
Earlier, the millers stressed the need to address some of the bottlenecks affecting the increase in rice production in the country.

They also listed some areas where they needed intervention to include: Investment in research, irrigation facility and stable rice policy, as well as the need to tackle issue of smuggling.

Others included bigger fields, funding, access to land, establishment of more rice mills and increase in capacity of existing mills in the country among others.

Tanzania: TCB Targets 60,000 Tonnes Output

DESPITE the fall of coffee prices in the world market, local farmers' earnings are set to increase following Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB) interventions in cutting down costs.
The move to boost farmers' earnings comes amid bumper harvest this season seeing output jumping to 60,000 tonnes compared to 40,000 tonnes last year.

It shows how much producers have actively invested in better crop management activities and technologies. The TCB Director General, Mr Adolf Kumburu, said in an interview yesterday that after a meeting with coffee stakeholders including the district councils, various duties and levies on coffee were slashed to 3.0 per cent, from 5 per cent; an initiative will cut down costs and boost farmers' earnings.

"The initiative is an incentive to coffee farmers to increase production particularly at times when world prices are seen falling," he said, adding that the move will lessen the magnitude of income fall.

He said in May and June, this year, world coffee prices declined to 3 US dollars from 5 US dollars per kilogramme in the recent months, thus impacting heavily on coffee farmers earnings.

As part of the interventions after reading the market trend, he said the board has been advising coffee farmers when to sell their coffee in order to fetch premium prices.

Tanzania is Africa's fourth largest coffee producer after Ethiopia, Uganda and Ivory Coast. According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) monthly economic review, coffee prices in the world market declined largely due to weakening of the Brazilian currency against the US dollar, thus increasing coffee exports from Brazil, which is the world's largest coffee producer.

Coffee production in the world's biggest grower Brazil could fall to 44 million to 45.5 million 60-kg bags in 2015, in part due to the drop in robusta output.
The statistics show that output is down from the estimate of 48 million to 49 million bags and below most estimates gathered so far by other trade houses that range from 45.3 million bags to 49.75 million bags for the upcoming 2015/16 crop.

Nigeria To Start Production Of Canned Fish – CAFAN Scribe

Chief Rotimi Onibale, National Secretary, Catfish Farmers Association of Nigeria (CAFAN) on Monday said the association would soon start the production of canned catfish in the country.



Onibale, who disclosed this in an interview with FoodFarmNews in Ibadan, said that research was ongoing to ensure that Nigeria started its own production of canned fish.

“Our association is in the process of research to start the production of canned fish in Nigeria and we hope to implement it fully this year because it has been long overdue.

“When the sardines from Tunisia and Morocco go out of production, we will be able to have our own locally made fish to eat and we will also export to other countries,’’ he said.

Onibale added that the proposed canned catfish would have all vital food benefits that would also be good for the growth of children.

He said that the project was being supported by two organisations including the National Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMAR) and Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA).
Onibale, who noted the importance of catfish in the body system, added that the canning process would soon get registered and made available in the market.

“We are happy to announce that the canning of the catfish is still in its gradual process and we are making all efforts to register the product by the regulatory bodies in Nigeria.

“We hope that before the year runs out, all the research work would have been completed and the product made available to the consumers,’’ he said.

Nigeria earns N472bn from cocoa, others

The country earned a total sum of $2.4bn (N472bn) from the exportation of cocoa, rubber, and other non-oil commodities within the 2014 fiscal period, figures obtained from the Nigerian Export Promotion Council have revealed.

The country’s export figure of $2.4bn for 2014, according to trade statistics from the NEPC, represents a decline of 19.19 per cent over the $2.97bn (N585bn) earned in the previous year.

A breakdown of the non-oil receipts of $2.4bn showed that cocoa exports with a total amount of $666.45m accounted for the highest non-oil export earnings, followed by raw hides, skins and leather with $487.97m.
Others are oil seeds, grains and plant/straw, amounting to $389.78m; aluminium, $113.35m; tobacco, $109.05m; tins, $96.32m; edible fruits and nuts, $75.24m; rubbers, $70.03m and footwear, $62.89m.
The rest are copper, $59.6m; fish and crustaceans, $55.68m; plastics, $54.63m; lead, $46.65m; nickel, $27.35m; cottons, yarns and woven, $21.87m.

In terms of country of destination, the NEPC document indicated that Netherlands, with a total amount of $456.96m, accounted for Nigeria’s highest non-oil export revenue.
Others are ECOWAS, $350.8m; Italy, $344.21m; Japan, $211.25m; India, $209.4m; Turkey, $116.8m; Spain, $102.2m; Germany, $100.97m; China, $86.3m; Vietnam, $85.4m and the United States, $81.6m.
Similarly, Nigeria’s total exports to South Korea stood at $74.2m in 2014; Hong Kong, $62.3m; Malaysia, $41.7m while Belgium, the United Kingdom and Canada stood at $39.6m, $39.5m and $29.7m, respectively.

The Chief Executive Officer, NEPC, Mr. Olusegun Awolowo, said the agency had been at the forefront of the diversification of the Nigerian economy, adding that this had been further reinforced by the recent decline in the price of crude oil in the global market.

While admitting that the drop in the price of oil had led to reductions in government revenue with pronounced negative effects on different sectors of the economy, he said that NEPC had identified 13 National Strategic Export Products to replace oil.

The 13 products are palm oil, cocoa, cashew, sugar, rice, iron ore, metals, aluminium, and auto parts.
Others are petroleum products, fertilizer/urea, petrochemicals and methanol.
He said, “The expectations we have is to explore the possibility of investing in priority areas that we have highlighted.

“We need to attract counterpart investments into priority areas by investors such as the agricultural sector. We need to fastback trade event information and we want to support capacity development for exporters.”
He said the potential of the 13 products, which cut across key sectors of the economy would be maximised through investments, capacity development, innovation and formidable partnerships.

Nigeria can produce 1m metric tons of cashew yearly with right policies –Sotonye

 

Anga Sotonye is an Executive Committee member of the National Cashew Association of Nigeria and the Coordinator, Agribusiness & Youth Empowerment in Nigeria. In this interview with ABOLAJI ADEBAYO, he speaks on what Nigeria is losing for her failure to fully harness the potential of cashew and other agro commodities for manufacturing industries’ benefits and the nation’s economic growth

Sir, could you give an insight into the process of preparing cashew for export and what it involves in processing it?
Yes, our equipment just arrived, cashew processing equipment. Right now, we are about to start assembling and all of that to process cashew nut into cashew kernel that is one of the ways we would soon commence aggressively. To me, that is how we can create more jobs and we can earn more because locally there is a very big market for cashew. But, when it comes to export of raw cashew nut generally it is big business that I can always maintain that there is cash in cashew processing.

At a cashew warehouse like this, the process is straight forward. You buy any cashew from the farm gate, in the bushes, in places such as Enugu, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Kogi, Oyo, Abia and other parts of the country. We buy the cashew directly from the farmers and bring them into the warehouse for processing and subsequent sale in local and international markets.

As a commodity exporter, could you expatiate on export potential of commodities like cashew, ginger, garlic and others?
We export cashew, ginger, sesame seeds and other agricultural commodities but our expertise is exclusively in trading and exporting value addition of these commodities, including plantation in the (blueprint) and management. Cashew for instance is a great crop. I call it a winner crop because everything about cashew is just useful. You can imagine, when you plant cashew it becomes the first line of defence to fight erosion and you are contributing to an improved and a balance environment. The canopy the cashew trees provide serves as shield for relaxation, and when it comes to the cashew nut itself, there is so much to it.

You can take the cashew nut for export as raw cashew. In Nigeria, raw cashew nut is exported that is what we do predominantly. Nigeria today produces 124,000 metric tons of cashew nut, just nut. We are not talking about cashew apple, and we are not talking about other by-products of cashew, just the nut alone.When you talk about the apple we produce over a million metric tons of cashew apple that can easily be converted to cashew apple juice but over 90 per cent of that cashew apple juice is wasting during harvest because there is no processing. In fact, there is zero processing in Nigeria for cashew apple so it is wasted.

Is there any nutritional value in cashew, what are the health benefits of eating cashew?
When you look at the cashew apple it is richer in vitamin C complex so when 90 per cent of that is wasted you can imagine the colossal loss the economy is going through in the first place. We encourage people to consume cashew apple but people zero in on the cashew nut because this is where the economy potential of the cashew is, that is obvious so, everybody is going into the business by buying the raw cashew and exporting it. The cashew nut has zero cholesterol. So, for the health-conscious consumers, cashew nut is preferable. When you go to somebody’s house and they bring cashew nut, ground nut and they drop the two before you, naturally you will go for the cashew nut because the cashew nut has greater appeal, it looks more prosperous and of course it is healthier but it is more expensive and because it is expensive you don’t find it everywhere. Mainly you find cashew nut in the home of the rich.

What is the value at the export market, do you have a benchmark for how much a bag of cashew is sold or do you sell per container?
The measurement actually is in tons and today a ton of cashew sells for $1200. We have 1000kg in a ton and 13 bags make one ton. In a container, you have to store about 17 tons. You can decide to ship 100 containers, 200 containers; it can be 1000 containers depending on the finance that is available to you. Cashew is a big business and it is a serious business, it is a sector that should be supported strongly by the government because cashew is an industry that is not yet fully explored, the potential of the cashew industry has not been fully harnessed.

When you do not fully harness the potential of this industry it means that you are still as a nation that will be suffering from job loss, reduced income, you are suffering a whole lot of disadvantage. When you are exporting raw cashew your market globally is defeated than when you are exporting value added product.

Does Nigeria really depend on imported processed cashew?
Yes, we do.. When we export our raw cashew into Asia it is processed there and that processed cashew would have created jobs for their own people. By further exporting the processed cashew into Nigeria they are also earning foreign exchange for their countries and we buy it as Nigerians and we eat it.

What we have in Nigeria is low profile processing, which cannot be compared with the imported ones. We need, as a nation, to build very advanced cashew processing facilities because we have the capacity, we have the raw materials. We can take advantage of these raw materials to add value to them. It can create local jobs for our people and we can sell the processed ones locally and also export them.

With your experience in cashew trading, what does it entail to have a state of the art world class processing plant for cashew?
You need on the average about $400,000 on the minimum and when you convert the money into naira, you are talking about N83 million. That is what we need on equipment alone, not to talk about the warehouse for the factory and all other things. So, why would you want to invest $400,000 of hard earn cash into processing when you are not sure of electricity. If you don’t have electricity it means are going to be utilizing generator and diesel, which is also very expensive. You are going to compete with countries like Brazil, Vietnam, India and others that have constant electricity at a very low price.

You want to use generator to process and compete with these countries, you cannot compete. So, for us to be able to build a sustainable cashew industry we need to support the industry, a lot of government support is needed. Right now, we know that as a country we don’t have stable electricity. So, government should give cashew processors some form of subsidy to subsidize their cost of electricity because running on generator is huge cost for them.

The other time you were trying to explain cashew nut and the economic value of its other components would you like to share some light on that?
The cashew nut I called the winner crop; it is so valuable because it is a big industry on its own. When you export raw cashew nut, you do not just export cashew nut alone. First of all when you crack this cashew nut you have what we call cashew nut shell, from the cashew nut shell you can extract cashew nut shell liquid which is called CNSL or shell liquid.

Cashew nut shell liquid is used for a lot of industrial applications including the manufacturing of insecticide and a whole lot of products. Cashew nut shell burns like wild fire and it contain bio fuel. When you come to cashew cannel, it is what people eat as a processed cashew nut. You salt it, you can spice it with pepper depending on your taste. When you look at the whole value chain, it is a multi-billion dollar industry.
We in Nigeria pride ourselves as major producers of cashew with very insignificant processors. We cannot continue like that. That is why we have to change the way we do business. We have to provide a lot of support, specialized, well articulated support for the cashew industry so that the industry can be built. We can harness the potential of our cashew crop, so that we can create more cashew millionaire in Nigeria, we can create more wealth from cashew.

Sir, how do you think government can support the private sector?
That is the critical thing. To create more wealth and create guarantee market for our cashew farmers is to create the industry here. All kinds of support should be given to the private sectors so that they can establish cashew industries in Nigeria. The support should include tax wavers, subsidy to some level to reduce the cost of energy and all of that so that people can go on to create more byproducts from cashew in Nigeria. That is where the wealth is, that is where the job is, and that is where the economic potential of the crop is that will need to harness and develop.

The demand for Nigerian cashew nut is on the rise so we have to step up by increasing local production; we have to grow more cashew trees. It takes four years, when you plant cashew nut for it to grow into commercial viability. At the fourth year for the next forty years you will be harvesting cashew on yearly bases. It is a good business, you plant your tree once and for the next forty to fifty years you will be harvesting from the same tree. Government should encourage people to plant cashew and you see it will be important for the incumbent government of Buhari to do something radical that no government in Nigeria has done. If you want to build an industry sometimes you need to be radical.

Today, our production capacity for the raw cashew nut is 144,000 metric tons annually. We need to step up our production, we need to step up production by two folds, we need to take our production to somewhere around 400,000 annually, that is what a serious government should be talking about. Now if you ask me I can give you categorically and clearly that it is easy for us in Nigeria to take our cashew production from 144,000 metric tons to 1,000,000 metric tons in just four years. It is the simplest thing anybody can do. It is just a matter of being strategic.

When we increase our production from 144,000 metric tons to 1,000,000 metric tons, it simply means that automatically the value of cashew we would have grown in Nigeria would have so increased with one million metric tons, and by that, we will be talking about more economic empowerment for our people. The implication of that is that we would have grown our earnings, revenue from raw cashew from about N34 billion to somewhere in the neighborhood of about N300billion to N500 billion annually.

Is it not better to increase our earnings from N34 billion to N500 billion without doing anything too technical? All what we have simply done is get more people to plant cashew. How do you do it? Identify them and encourage them through simple incentive programme that will be drawn out. You should increase production of cashew across the nation, increase processing, and increase export. When you do these three things you will take the cashew industry from the unpleasant status now to a multi billion naira economy. More people will be employed because we are going to have more cashew trees scattered across the country.

14 West African Countries Tackle IUU to Ensure Safety At Sea

14 West African Country including Nigeria have met to brainstorm and tackle  illegal, unregulated and unreported (‎IUU)fishing activities while and ensure safety at sea.

The Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Architect Sonny Echono stated this in Abuja on Tuesday at the Opening Ceremony of  the “2nd Regional Steering Committee Meeting of ECOWAS Marine THEMA  Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) with the Theme “Enhancing the Use of Earth Observation to support Fisheries Management and Safety at Sea in Western Africa”

The Permanent Secretary who was represented by the Ministry’s Director of Fisheries, Aderemi Abioye said” The partnership through the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was to build platforms for collaborations and partnerships with other African Countries in the West African regions to harmonise our regulations and monitor the operations of fishing vessels across the Region”

He added that  as part of  efforts to meet the nations fish demands “the federal ministry of agriculture  is  promoting aqua -culture, accommodating new investment in fish production( using different technologies) encouraging and empowering  artisanal fishermen  to be able to produce fish from rivers, lagoons lakes and all inland waters in the country”.

Architect Echono maintained that “ECOWAS is helping us to use Earth Observation Data (EOD) to be able to monitor marine waters and provide security fishing vessels and their operators and also ensure the protection of the environment in the Coastal waters of Nigeria and West Africa”

Speaking on the challenges of fishery in Nigeria , he said “fishery which formed about 4% of total GDP was challenged by the cost of oil bunkering, operation costs of vessels, piracy”, further assuring  that the department in collaboration with security agencies was working to ensure safety of fishing vessels across the waterways”

Also speaking in his keynote address Provost, University of Ghana Prof. Ebenezer Owusu said “the goal of the workshop is to help curb illegal unregulated and unreported fishing activities using satellite imagery as global losses due to IUU or pirate fishing which are estimated to be between USD $10b  and US $23.5b annually”

He revealed that “West Africa waters are estimated to have the highest levels of IUU fishing in the World, representing up to 37% of the regions catch. Adding that in addition to economic losses pirate fishing in West Africa severely compromises the food security and livelihoods of coastal communities”

ECOWAS Commissioner for Agriculture, Environment and Water Resources, Dr Lapodini Atouga , Represented by the Director Environment Dr Johnson Boanuh  in his welcome address said the project has a 4 year life span of which a year had been expended.

He charged participants to constantly keep in view the global objective of the project which is to increase information management, decision making and planning capacity for coastal and marine resources management, by enhancing access to and exploitation of relevant EO data.

WACOT: Nigeria gets $32m non-oil revenue from sesame export

The General Manager, West African Cotton Company Limited (WACOT) Pankaj Chawla, said ‎Nigeria has non-oil revenue of $320 million from exports of sesame, representing 10 per cent of the total sum of $3.2 billion global trade of the cash crop.

Chawla said that Nigeria is among the leading producers of sesame, adding that about 180,000 Metric Tones (MT) were produced annually in the country.

Speaking during the official launching of mass production of sesame in Gumel Local Government area of Jigawa State‎, the general manager said the country stands to benefit from sesame farming owing to the fact that Chinese farmers have begun to abandon the crop while India ‘s production is hampered by erratic whether condition.Chawla noted that Nigerian farmers would get an edge due to demand and supply mismatch and good pricing.

He said: “Let me use this opportunity to briefly explain the global scenario of sesame production and how it can benefit us in Nigeria. It is an important cash‎ crop globally. It was originated from India, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania and Myanmar. Global production of sesame is around 4.5 million tones out of which 2.0 million tones are traded globally from the import sesame producing countries. Countries like China, Japan, Turkey and Korea are the major buyers of sesame.”

He added: “Nigeria produces around 180,000MT of sesame annually and from our neighbours like Chad and Niger we get about 40,000MT, which when put‎ together gives Nigeria a share of 10per cent of the total. Global trade of sesame. Therefore, the global trade is about $3.2 billion and Nigeria has non-oil revenue of $320 million from export of sesame”, he added

He maintained that the firm’s partnership with the Jigawa government would boost sesame production in the state, noting that the 1.0/ha average yield of the crop would help improve economic life of the people of the state.

Chawla also said that WACOT, having engaged in sesame production business, is also a large producers of cotton with billions of Naira investment in the country, adding that the company has workforce of about 6000 staff.

He appreciated the effort of the Jigawa State government for the agricultural partnership, stressing that the firm is ready to deliver 100per cent in the development ‎of agriculture in the state.

In his address, the Jigawa State deputy governor, Barrister Ibrahim Hassan, ‎restated the government’s willingness to partner with the investors to achieve agricultural development in the state.

According to him, agriculture is the mainstay of the state’s economy, noting that it provides livelihood for over 90per cent of the state’s population.

He added that the state government has identified agriculture as a vehicle to drive the economy of the state forward, saying that the state is 7th largest crop producer in the country with crop value estimated at N644.41 billion.

He further said that the government would mainly focus on agricultural programmes to achieve puberty reduction in the state, adding that it is part of its policies to use agriculture to increase food security, nutrition and contribute to sustainable employment generation and agro-based economic growth.

FG Should Allocate 20% Of Annual Budget To Agriculture – AFAN

 

The national president, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr Kabiru Ibrahim, in this interview with Ruth Tene Natsa, among other issues, called for an increase in the budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector and more government funding. Excerpts.. 

What are your specific recommendations to government on how to resettle farmers affected by the insurgency in some part of the North?
My specific recommendation is to be able to put the farmers back in business, and in terms of stamping out insurgency, there must be a deliberate programme to help or compensate farmers in their losses. There must be a programme of reconstruction that must include both economic and physical measures.

What intervention has been made by the AFAN to tackle the security challenges of insurgency and the problem of Fulani
herdsmen?
We are just from a meeting of the grazing reserves and routes and I can confidently say that the government is anxious to put an end to cattle rustling and whatever is causing the fight between the sedentary and nomadic farmers. The AFAN is in the middle of it.

Do you have an idea of how much farmers and the country has lost to insurgency?
In naira it is difficult to say, but right now I can tell you that most farmers affected cannot even afford to feed themselves.

Speaking about the interests of farmers, how would you rate the success of the GES?
It think its rich; the only drawback is that under the GES, the government was able to register only 14 million farmers. Of course we are more than twice that in Nigeria. What has happened under the GES is a selective registration of farmers, probably on the political leaning of farmers. Normally what happens is that it is the directors of agriculture that register farmers in the state, and they do this without the collaboration of the AFAN who are supposed to provide the names, thus giving way to corruption. So there is the need to ask, who are the marketers that provide the fertilisers, is it on merit, are the seed companies chosen on competitive basis or selected because they belong to some interests groups? Believe me if it was free the AFAN would have embraced it. But if you look at the states and local governments, the GES is only affecting friends of the governors of the state.

President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) has indicated interest to continue with the GES. What would be your
recommendations?
There is nothing wrong with the GES.What we are saying is that the programme should be modified because as far as we are concerned agriculture has no borders. It does not consider gender or religion, we do not segregate and there is no politics to it. If the GES is done on that basis, its reach will be deeper and will therefore be a success. So for the GES to be a success the AFAN must be involved; they must be part of the implementation of the scheme.

Have farmers been able to access the mechanisation GES?
Well, it was launched last year and I do not know if it is under the GES. If it is, it is yet to really take shape for us to be able to access it. But what I would encourage government to do is to create parks with large tractors and in the places of need as it is not everywhere that they are needed. In the same vein, it is not everywhere that the combined harvester, irrigation equipment and other such equipment are needed. They should be located at specific areas of needs. They should be kept in parts and have a management that will have control of their uses.

There have been rumours about the leadership of the AFAN. Is there a faction?
As far as I know, there is no faction. The executives and I were elected in May 2014 in our traditional show ground along Keffi Road and before then there was no other election. We were given the mandate to take over leadership after due process following the review of the constitution. The election came afterwards. So there is no faction, people are agitating for nothing,the office of the president, or any other office, does not attract anything. We are doing something that will add value to farmers and agriculture in Nigeria and if anybody is claiming leadership, let him show his followers. We have chairmen in all the states of the federation and even at the local government level.

Does the AFAN have a record of all farmers?
We do in all the states and very soon will come up with identification for all our registered farmers as well make available to them copies of our constitution which will be translated into Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa. We are working tirelessly to ensure we speak in one voice.

Aside the implementation of the Maputo Declaration, what are your recommendations to PMB with regard to agriculture?
For the year 2016, the federal government, and indeed all the tiers of government, should allocate 20 per cent of the total annual budget for 2016/2017 to the sector because going by past records, with a budget of four trillion, 20 per cent of that will be about N1.6 trillion. With that we can do everything that needs to be done.

People could argue that the sector is already well funded?
Yes it is, but it is not funded by government. From the 2015 budget it hardly got 2 per cent, 2014 was 1.7 per cent.

Would you say the little that is given has been effectively utilised?
I am sure the transition committee of the present government has uncovered so many things wrong with budget implementation. 50 per cent of these budgets are almost hardly utilised in all cases, even less than that in some cases. So if 1.7 per cent was allocated in 2014, hardly will 50 per cent of that be implemented in agriculture. Even the privatisation of the value chain is not well coordinated. Government must identify what each state has competence for and make it the state’s priority as done in other

Cooperative Trains 5, 000 Women On Cassava Foods In Borno

The Cassava Farmers Cooperative Union says no fewer than 5000 women in Borno have so far been trained to produce good varieties of cassava foods.

The Chairman of the cooperative, Alhaji Alamin Umara, told FoodFarmNew in Maiduguri on Friday that the gesture was aimed at boosting the entrepreneurial skills of women across the state.

Umara said the women were being trained to produce additional foods in their various localities that would generate income as well as food security of cassava.

He listed some of the cassava food derivatives to include bread, chin, cakes, pounded yam, flour, doughnut and garri, among others.

Umara said that each of the women received N20, 000 grant to enable them start up their businesses.

“Most of the women we trained were victims of the insurgency drawn from Bama, Munguno, Magumeri, Abadam, Baga and so on.

“We are expecting some loan from the bank, we have concluded plans to train 15, 000 of them on the same skills.

“The gesture, we believe, will go a long way to alleviate the plight of the beneficiaries as well as create employment opportunity for them,’’ Umara said.

Desertification, Drought Contribute To Rural-Urban Drift – Director

The Director, Drought and Desertification Amelioration, Federal Ministry of Environment, Dr Bukar Hassan, on Sunday said desertification and drought have contributed to the increasing rural to urban migration in the country.

Speaking with FoodFarmNews (FFN) in Abuja, Hassan noted that drought and desertification had also contributed to the climate change with its effect on the country’s economy.

Hassan lamented that drought and desertification had wilted away farmlands of farmers residing in dry land areas.

He appealed to government at all levels to increase budgetary allocation to Ministry of Environment to combat drought and desertification.

He said that increased budgetary allocation would ensure better environment, mitigate the effects of climate change, reclaim farmlands and return life to the rural areas, especially in the Northern parts of the country.

The director, who commended the Federal Government’s efforts toward the fight against drought and desertification, said that more needed to be done to encourage wet and dry season farming.

According to him, the take off fund for the National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW) was about N10 million and we want government to increase it.

“All the insurgency we are talking about in Nigeria may have a root in land degradation and unemployment.

“In the 80s, Nigerian Government made huge investment in dry land agriculture in dry areas but because of climate change and other factors, these huge projects could not yield the desired results because of lack of water.

“The government should look into these issues critically with a view to assist people living in dry areas.

“What we expect the present administration to do is to ensure that the political will and financial will to combat desertification is increased so that the people can enjoy a better environment and reclaim their farmlands.

“Government has invested much on irrigation which has not realized its objectives so far because of drought, climate change.

“The fishermen do not have water to fish, farmers have no water to farm and they have nothing to do,’’ the director said.

He said the department in collaboration with the National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW) programme had adopted the bottom approach to help combat drought and desertification in the country.