The bird flu reapperance

Chicken

The bird flu reapperance yesterday at Ikorodu area, Lagos state shows that our farmers are not doing enough as regards ensuring the cleanliness of their poultry sites thereby not conforming to many of the awareness being created through several trainings and sensitization programmes of the government since the source of this zoonotic is majorly dirt which constant cleaning of the poultry environment can checkmate.

Farmers should be more conscious about reality of liability towards proper care to their birds rather than probably assuming government taking responsibility in terms of compensation. I hope other states should be alerted for containment.

Wake up and sell more coffee

coffee farmers

ON A hillside about an hour’s drive north of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, is a visible demonstration of the difference between the miserable reality of smallholder farming in Africa and what it could be. On one side of the steep terraces stand verdant bushes, their stems heavy with plump coffee beans. A few feet away are sickly ones, their sparse leaves spotted with disease and streaked with yellow because of a lack of fertilizer.

Millicent Wanjiku Kuria, a middle-aged widow, beams under an orange headcloth. Cash from coffee has already allowed her to buy more land and a cutting machine that prepares fodder for a dairy cow that lows softly in its thatched shed. Her bumper crops are largely a result of better farming techniques such as applying the right amount of fertiliser (two bags, not one) and pruning back old stems on her trees.

Simple changes such as these can increase output by 50% per tree. Her income has increased by even more than this, because bigger berries from healthy trees sell at twice the price of their scrawnier brethren, says Arthur Nganga of TechnoServe, a non-profit group that is training Mrs Kuria and thousands of other smallholders in Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. This year’s crop will pay for a pickup, she says, so she no longer has to hitch rides on a motorcycle.

Mrs Kuria’s success invites a question. If it is so easy to raise a small farmer’s output, why haven’t all the small farmers managed it? To say that the answer matters is a wild understatement. Africa’s poorest and hungriest people are nearly all farmers. To lift themselves out of poverty, they must either move to a city or learn to farm better.

It should be possible to grow much more in Africa. The continent has about half of the world’s uncultivated arable land and plenty of people to work it. It is true that erratic rainfall adds to the risks of farming on large parts of the savannah, but switching to drought-tolerant varieties of plants or even to entirely different ones—cassava or sorghum instead of maize, for instance—can mitigate much of this problem. Indeed Africa has in the past given glimpses of its vast potential. Five decades ago it was one of the world’s great crop-exporters. Ghana grew most of the world’s cocoa, Nigeria was the biggest exporter of palm oil and peanuts, and Africa grew a quarter of all the coffee people slurped.  

Since then it has shifted from being a net exporter of food to an importer. Sub-Saharan Africa’s share of agricultural exports has slipped to a quarter of its previous level; indeed, the entire region has been overtaken by a single country: Thailand (see chart). This is largely because Africa’s crop yields have improved at only half the pace of those elsewhere and are now, on average, a third to a half of those in the rich world. Farmers in Malawi harvest just 1.3 tonnes of maize per hectare compared with 10 tonnes in Iowa.

economist

There are several reasons for the stagnation in African agricultural productivity but poor policies have played a large role. In many countries state-owned monopolies for the main export crops were established either before independence or soon after.

 The prices paid to farmers were generally squeezed to create profits that were meant to be invested in other, sexier, industries. Such policies failed to spark an industrial revolution but succeeded in making farmers poorer.

 In Ghana, for instance, the colonial administration and first independent government taxed cocoa exports so heavily that farmers stopped planting new trees. By the 1980s cocoa production had collapsed by two-thirds.

In the 1990s many of these policy mistakes were compounded when, urged on Western donors and aid experts, many African countries dismantled their agricultural monopolies without giving time for markets to develop or putting in place institutions to link farmers to them. This was good for commercial farmers in places such as South Africa, where output soared, but cut off remote smallholders. Farmers in Zambia, for instance, now pay twice as much for fertiliser as those in America.

Yet this Cinderella sector is now being seen as an opportunity rather than a “development problem”, says Mamadou Biteye, who heads the African operations of the Rockefeller Foundation, a charity. Money from organisations such as Rockefeller, the Gates Foundation and do-gooding companies such as Nestlé is pouring into supporting small farmers.

The first benefit is improved productivity. Farmers have been shown how to increase crop yields sharply simply by changing their techniques or switching to better plant varieties. A second is in improving farmers’ access to markets. Progress here is being speeded along by technology. In Nigeria the government has stopped distributing subsidised fertiliser and seeds through middlemen who generally pocketed the subsidies: it reckons that only 11% of farmers actually got the handouts that were earmarked for them. Instead it now directly issues more than 14m farmers with electronic vouchers via mobile phones.

economist

Or take Kenya Nut, a privately owned nut processor. It is using technology from the Connected Farmer Alliance to send text messages to farmers giving them the market price of their produce, so they are not ripped off by the first buyer to show up with a lorry.

After years of underperforming, Africa’s smallholders have a lot of catching up to do. The World Bank estimates that food production and processing in Africa could generate $1 trillion a year by 2030, up from some $300 billion today. Yet many remain sceptical that Africa’s small farmers will achieve their potential. To some, the rewards on offer seem too good to be true, like the $50 on the pavement that the economist in the joke walks past because “If it were real, someone would already have picked it up.”

Yet the success of projects such as those run by TechnoServe and Olam (a commodity trader that helps farmers grow more cashews, sesame seeds and cocoa in Nigeria) suggest that there may well be $700 billion on the pavement—or rather, in Africa’s fields. Instead of subsidising steel and other big industries, African nations should wake up and sell more coffee—not to mention cocoa, nuts and maize.

Nigeria’s N630bn annual food import bill worries Emefiele

Emefiele,

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin  Emefiele, has reiterated his concern over the country’s position as a net importer of agricultural produce with import above N630 billion.
The country imports food products such as wheat, rice, flour, fish, tomato paste, textile and sugar in large quantities annually.

Emefiele, stated this in a keynote address presented at a training workshop on innovative agricultural insurance products held in Lagos Thursday. The forum was to activate the insurance pillar of the Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL).

He pointed out that Nigeria is currently confronted with a wide range of development challenges, especially with the dwindling global crude oil prices and the nation’s dependence on it as its major source of revenue. To this end, he stressed the need to diversify the mono-cultural tendencies of the Nigerian economy by developing other sectors of the economy especially agriculture.

He recalled that before the oil boom, the Nigerian economy was mainly sustained by agriculture.  In the 1960s the agricultural sector contributed up to 60 per cent of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and was the most important in terms of contribution to domestic production, employment and foreign exchange earnings.

The country was then known to be exporters of cocoa beans, gum Arabic, groundnuts, cotton, palm oil and many other agricultural commodities.

“But now, we import most of the agricultural commodities that we can produce because of the neglect of the sector in addition to rural migration to cities in search of white collar jobs.  The agricultural sector provides up to 70 per cent of employment in Nigeria and accounts for about 42 per cent of the country’s GDP.

“In Nigeria today, rural farmers contribute to about 70 per cent of the food produced which they do mainly by subsistence farming. These farmers with their small land holdings of 1 to 3 hectares are producing sub-optimally due to lack of adequate inputs, insufficient exposure to good agronomic practices and limited access to finance and credit.

“It is due to this subsistent level of farming that farmers do not see the importance of insuring their farming activities. Currently, Nigeria’s formal financial system is lending about four per cent of all formal credit to the agricultural sector compared to three years ago when only about one per cent of all credit went to agriculture. Lending is still low because of the lingering perception by banks that agriculture is highly risky,” the governor who was represented at the workshop by the acting Managing Director, NIRSAL, Mr. Edwin Nzelu, said.

According to him, the development and expansion of the agricultural insurance sub-sector would go a long way in mitigating against natural disasters and eventually encouraging banks to lend to agriculture.

He added that agricultural insurance had been proven to be instrumental in transferring risks and stabilising farmers’ income, noting that in Nigeria, it remains one of the less developed line of business.

“Therefore, there is need for insurance companies in collaboration with relevant stakeholders to develop innovative products that will carter for the needs of farmers in their provision of agricultural insurance.

“Over the years, only the Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) was licensed to underwrite Agriculture insurance in the country, until two years ago when NAICOM liberalised the insurance subsector for conventional insurers to underwrite.

“I urge Private insurance companies to take advantage of this opportunity and consider extending insurance cover to the agricultural sector to create a competitive market which will eventually increase insurance penetration to rural areas,” he said.

Nigeria to produce bioethanol from cassava.

Cassava

The Nigerian Cassava Growers’ Association (NCGA) has partnered with the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), an international private infrastructure financier, to set up a bioethanol plant, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

National president of NCGA Segun Adewumi says the plant, which is to use cassava as feedstock, will also serve as a bioenergy and power generation plant for ten states of the West African federal republic.

‘NCGA is planning to establish ethanol factories across the nation that will produce millions of litres of ethanol in a year. We are focusing on ten states and the requirement is that we will get 6,000 hectares of cassava farm in each of the states,’ Adewumi says.

The land to be purchased will be demarcated into blocks of ten acres and allocated farmers, who will sell their cassava to the ethanol plant.

Adewumi says the project is being spearheaded by the E-Debit Corporation, a consultant company, to facilitate developmental programmes and connect financial institutions to manufacturers and farmers.

Impact of Fertilizer Quality Control System in Nigeria

fertilizer quality control system in Nigeria

In a bid to ensure fertilizer quality control system in Nigeria, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), has join forces with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), to put in place policies that will ensure better agricultural yields through quality control.

Speaking at the launch of the AGRA-supported project with the theme “Establishment and Implementation of Fertilizer Quality Control System in Nigeria”, the Permanent Secretary of the FMARD, Arc Sonny Echono, represented by the Director, Farm Input Support Service Department of the Ministry, Akinbolawa Osho, said “fertilizer is a crucial input in crop production, and its importance in crop productivity, and food security of the country cannot be over emphasized”.

He also disclosed that the legal and regulatory framework for fertilizer quality control would enable the Federal Government Inspectors to undertake periodic quality control at fertilizer production plants, ports of discharge, and market outlets.

The Permanent Secretary disclosed that fertilizer samples would be drawn by inspection officials for laboratory analysis. He said that government has identified some violations in the sub-sector which include plant nutrient deficiencies, misbranding, adulteration, short weight of bags, bagging quality, operating without certificate of registration or with expired certificate of registration.

Echono, however, condemned the activities of some unscrupulous players who have been ripping farmers off the benefit accruable from their investment in fertilizer. He maintained that the obligation of the government under the policy statement is to ensure and enforce quality control of fertilizer through the establishment of a market-friendly, legal regulatory framework that is adopted and legislated by the ministry.

He said, “the legal and regulatory framework for fertilizer quality control will provide the Federal Government Inspectors the power to undertake periodic quality control at the fertilizer production plants, fertilizer samples to be drawn by inspection officials for laboratory analysis, payment of inspection fees, and guidelines for proper labeling,” among others.

Meanwhile, Echono assured that a draft Fertilizer Bill sent by the Ministry to the National Assembly had passed the first reading and it is expected to be passed into law soonest. He maintained that the present administration’s drive in the agriculture sector of the economy is geared towards employment generation, food security, and poverty reduction.

Earlier in her welcome address, the Deputy Director, Quality Control, FMARD, who is also the Project Manager, Chinyere Akudinobi, stated that the project was aimed at developing and implementing a functional fertilizer regulatory system in the country which she said would address the problems of fertiliser quality in Nigeria. Making a presentation on the project, Akudinobi noted that while fertilizer consumption was estimated at about 790,000 metric tonnes annually, 280,000 metric tonnes was blended locally while the rest was imported.

Stakeholders Urge FG to maintain Public-Private Initiatives

Stakeholders on yam production have called upon the Federal Government to support the setting up of public-private initiative to facilitate an emerging tissue culture based yam seed in the country.

This was contained in communiqué arising from a Yam Seed Production workshop held at the University of Ibadan, Oyo state and made available to the newsmen recently.

The three-page communiqué was signed by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics), University of Ibadan, Prof. Gbemisola Oke, and the workshop facilitator, Dr Morufat Balogun, Geneticist in the Department of Crop Protection and Environmental Biology.

The yam stakeholders noted that there was limited availability of yam seeds from Temporary Immersion Bioreactors, adding that scarcity of planting materials is a major constraint to yam production in Nigeria.

“In order to allay fear or reservations towards acceptability of tissue culture produced seed yam among other farmers as well as the general populace, there should be advocacy for acceptability of the technology through different media.’’, it said.

The communiqué stated that stakeholders had observed that there was need to use TIBs to speed up the production of planting materials also known as clean seed yam.

According to the communiqué, yam is an important food crop in Nigeria and the country is the world’s largest producer.

“Having identified possible market glut that might result from rapid propagation technologies, the workshop opined that NRCRI and National Stored Product Research Institute (NSPRI) should develop and advocate for improved harvesting, post-harvest handling and storage’’
The workshop also called on the Federal government to as a matter of priority; revitalize the yam export market in line with the alternative revenue drive of the present administration.

It equally canvassed for youth training and development, using National Youth Corps members in other to overcome inadequate skill and low farmers’ level of education on the novel seed production system.

This, the communiqué added, would reduce rural-urban drift and expansion of farmland in seed yam production.

“As part of strategies to reduce cost and fatigue associated with yam production, gender responsibility should be identified, so that there will be more interest in farming’’, it added.

The stakeholders also recognised irregular electricity and availability of materials and reagents as threats to sustainable adoption of the technology.

To this end, it urged researchers to seek alternative, environment-friendly and cheaper sources of power and reagents.

“In addition, there should be specialization for different levels of production chain to accommodate high, medium and low skilled labour’’, the communiqué stressed.

It also called for increased automation in the technology to reduce possibility of human error which could cause huge losses and also identified lack of sustainable availability of funds to maintain the technology after set-up as a main threat to its use.

The workshop recommended that the government should put in place policies to support farmers’ cooperatives while also removing bottlenecks in assessing the existing agriculture loans.

“The workshop recognised farmers as being disadvantaged by lack of price regulation and low bargaining power and recommends the creation of yam marketing board, which will, among others, regulate the price of yam, and incorporate government interventions’’, it added.

Fabricated Tools Will Boost Agric Says NCAM

mechanization

The Federal Government has been urged to make use of the fabricated agricultural machines produced by indigenous engineers at the National Centre for Agriculture and Mechanisation (NCAM), Ilorin, to boost agriculture in Nigeria.

According to the Acting Director of NCAM, Yomi Kasali, many countries with bilateral relationships with Nigeria had since adopted some of the tools manufactured at the centre with tremendous improvement on their Agric yields.

Kasali, at the opening ceremony of the Marketing and Processing Demonstration Training hosted by NCAM, said the era when agriculture thrived under hand tools should be a thing of the past in Nigeria if the nation would attain self-sufficiency in food production.

The programme was organised by the Federal Government and involved six states of the federation namely Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Niger, Ogun and Taraba. It was packaged to reduce poverty among Nigerians and to stimulate the much needed economic growth.

For the NCAM boss, “It is a pity that most projects in Nigeria are not sustained, but we hope this will be held on a sustainable basis. We learnt it was packaged to favor the nation’s agric policy under a value change system with zeal for marketability. After all, what is the value of produce without a market for it?”
Kasali described the available human and material resources at the institute as “the very best” for the proposition by the government to ensure prompt marketing of agric products in the country.

According to him, “NCAM is not new to organizing this type of training programmes for donor-assisted projects. For five years, the centre organised training/workshops and provided technical back stopping for the processing and market expansion component of Root and Tuber Expansion Programme (RTEP).”

Among others, NCAM had fabricated machines such as cassava lifter, (hand-operated), tractor drawn tuber harvester, improved cassava peeling tool and cassava washing machine, motorized cassava grater, manual-operated tuber dicer, cassava mash sifter, multi-purpose mill and hydraulic press for cassava.

Kasali while praising the Federal Government policies on cassava growth and consumption said the same system should be adopted for the growth of rice as “locally produced rice has more nutritional values than imported ones.”

He added, “Cassava and rice which are among the most important staple crops in Nigeria are the crops whose value chain developments are being considered in this training. The importance of these two crops in food security and generation of income for the farmer and the nation needs no emphasis.

“The recent Federal Government policy on 10 percent inclusion of High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) in confectionery baking is expected to stimulate huge investment in the cassava sector, including the major activities in the cassava value chain, especially the downstream.”

Lessons From IFAD’s Success In Edo State

Hon. Abdul Oroh

Edo State Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Hon. Abdul Oroh has appealed to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) not to wind down the Community-Based Natural Resources Management Programme (CBNRMP) but should rather strengthen same.

Oroh, who made this appeal during an exclusive interview with AgroNigeria team in his home in Edo State, said the programme is well conceived.

“I think it’s a well conceived programme we have been happy to work with. The only problem I’ve seen is that we cannot expand it down to all the local government areas. Also, I’m told the programme is winding down, I think a good programme should not wind down rather it should be stepped up,” Oroh said.
He said youths, who initially had reservations about the programme, are today not only self-employed, but they are entrepreneurs.

“Unemployed youths who were engaged to develop their fish ponds were initially sceptical, they wanted to work in the banks or go to Lagos or Abuja to do something but they found themselves now taking care of their own lives. They are not only formulating the feeds, or drying the fish but they are also into marketing and they are making money and expanding.

“Most of our women on the other hand, are now running their poultries either as individuals or as cooperatives. We have some processing plants that we have established, we have the rice plant in Udoshi, we have cassava processing plant in Ogbuneken and a couple of other places. We also created infrastructure around those places like a borehole which members of those communities will benefit from and not just those who are members of the cooperatives or the farmers associations,” he said.

Oroh, while disclosing how successful the intervention programme was said “I would say it is a very successful programme in Edo State. The intervention is in nine local government areas but I think the multiplier effect has gone beyond the nine local governments. Three local governments were picked from each senatorial district and it covers areas like fisheries, aquaculture, crop, processing, access to market training and building of infrastructure.

“It has also assisted them in developing a saving culture -where you put some money in for investment for the raining days. The programme has also succeeded in training them to work together and to venture into new areas giving them the confidence to vary their scopes of operations. For instance, you see those who are growing only yam for their families, now they have gone beyond that. They grow yam, they now grow cassava, vegetable, citrus and many more,” he said CBNRMP is an IFAD intervention programme meant to invest in rural people.

The programme has made community development fund available to support local initiatives in sustainable livelihood improvement, natural resource management and the provision of small-scale community infrastructure.

The goal of the programme is to improve the standards of living and quality of life of the poor rural people in the Niger Delta, with a special focus on women and young people, spread across the nine Niger Delta states of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers, where poverty is severe and widespread despite a wealth of natural resources.

It has been observed that poverty is especially prevalent among small-scale farmers cultivating food crops and among fishing communities using only rudimentary equipment. These groups lack food security and are highly vulnerable to environmental shocks. The programme encourages them to participate in developmental activities.

It also builds the capacity of government institutions at different levels to meet the needs of these groups, and consolidates partnerships among donors, NGOs and other agencies.

A major concern is to reduce tension and conflict by improving employment opportunities for young people and channeling their energies into the development of sustainable livelihoods and natural resource management activities.

AGRICULTURE AND FINANCE; A MARRIAGE OR A SHAM

Agro-business

It is beyond crucial that man has food to eat; its importance cannot be over-emphasized. Food sustains our very existence and ultimately, does agriculture.

Terms such as “Agro-business” or “Agricultural Finance” are not new to us, they have been discussed, deliberated upon and dissected with little or no tangible results, even if these terms are new, it can be quickly pieced together to go with agriculture and finance. A marriage of the two sectors.

Agricultural Finance refers to the acquisition of financial services such as; loans, leases, insurance of crop and/or livestock, it covers the whole agricultural processes of input supply, production, distribution and marketing. Agricultural practitioners and Farmers are expected to make use of the opportunities Agricultural Financing provides but how easy is it to access these opportunities and are they truly helpful to farmers?
The co-owner of Eltoda Farms, Mrs. Toyin Falade, opens up on her experiences as a Farmer and her challenges with agricultural finance.

Eltoda farms, majorly dealing in livestock farming (poultry) and aquaculture, have been running for 14years, Mrs. Falade in partnership with her husband runs the marketing aspect while he runs the production.

As regards the funding of the farm, she said “finance is important in agriculture; however it is not the most important thing, passion first. When we decided we wanted to go into Agriculture, we had so many challenges; we were losing money every day but passion kept us. The funds are not forthcoming as they ought to be from financial institutions considering the importance of agriculture to life”.

According to her, “most banks do not fully understand the need of an average farmer, what they do is sympathize with us but they do not empathize with us. They have no understanding of what we are faced with. You cannot just sit in the four walls of your office and draw up packages for a farmer without being on the farm to know what our needs are. They have no fair idea and come up with a lot of impossible criteria, far-fetched collaterals. They keep saying when you give a farmer a loan; they will go and marry a second wife”

Mrs. Falade further explained how the funds can be utilized if they were given to farmers and how technology has made farming easier, more efficient, increased speed, better output and made agriculture a fun thing to do.

“Currently, our farm is operating on a semi-automated system, but there are a lot of achievements we could have done if we were operating on a fully automated system. There are fully automated cages where the feeding system, drinking system and manure system are all automated. For instance, I have a three tier cage, and I noticed that on a particular side the birds are doing better and producing more than on the other side, that is because they are being fed by different people.

“The birds faring better, are being fed by a tall attendant and so he could dispense better on the topmost layer while the other birds are being fed by a average height attendant who cannot reach them. Also, no matter how skilled a person is, there would still be wastages. These are as a result of things done manually, if we had a device and the attendants input a figure to feed a 100,000 birds, it is the exact figure put in that would be delivered.

“This minimizes wastages and ensures efficiency. We need funds to acquire machines, if we had the machines, we would be more productive. Banks are not being helpful; they are looking for their own comfort in the form of collateral. I believe if banks seriously co-partnered with farmers, things will no longer be treated casually” She explained.

Speaking on the role being played by the government, the co-owner of Eltoda Farms stated that, “the government is very far from the farmers. We forget that Nigeria is a highly consuming nation, we do very little of production and hardly export. Focusing our attention solely on oil exploration, as a Nation, there are other ways we can grow and agriculture is a high employer of labour.

“If an average family is self-sufficient regarding their feeding, other issues become minimal. The reason people commit all sort of atrocities at times is because they cannot bear to see their family go hungry.” She continued “the government has been looking elsewhere, putting so much money into oil exploration and telecommunications with very little attention to agriculture. The government of Nigeria should go back to times we had initiatives such as; Operation Feed the Nation, as a Country, we need to be self-sufficient at least when it comes to our food.”

Advising the government, Mrs. Falade said she believes the government should be more involved in agriculture, re-instating that nobody can live without food, “the community in which our farm is located do not have electricity but it is still existing, but the community could never have survived without food. The government is cutting off the subsidy on fuel and people are still surviving, this subsidy should be for farm produces instead.”

She also mentioned the non-availability of regulatory bodies for agricultural products. “In my experience with poultry, business men bring in chicks; parent stocks from who knows where, but because there are no standards, no body to check if the chicks meet the criteria before they sell out, we get bad deals.”

The co-owner of Eltoda farms further lamented that oftentimes farmers ‘burn their fingers’ in investments without any form of profit to show forth, “having fed the chicks for 20 or 21 weeks, expecting them to lay eggs, you will realize the chicks are not healthy”.

“We do not have government cover. If you sell bad chicks to me and there is a body I can report to, and you would have to return part of my money or anything, then you will be more careful next time.”

She also gave examples of times when she had gotten vaccines for her hens, which was supposed to maintain a ‘cold chain’ hence it loses potency, only for it to cause a relapse in the hen, “they sold to us failed vaccines!”

Mrs. Falade pleaded with the government to protect farmers and the banks should also be willing to help by getting more involved in the processes of agriculture, “they should visit our farms, speak with us and know what we are faced with in order to be able to offer us something beautiful for an average farmer.”

Impact of Fertilizer Quality Control System in Nigeria

fertilizer quality control system

In a bid to ensure fertilizer quality control system in Nigeria, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), has join forces with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), to put in place policies that will ensure better agricultural yields through quality control.

Speaking at the launch of the AGRA-supported project with the theme “Establishment and Implementation of Fertilizer Quality Control System in Nigeria”, the Permanent Secretary of the FMARD, Arc Sonny Echono, represented by the Director, Farm Input Support Service Department of the Ministry, Akinbolawa Osho, said “fertilizer is a crucial input in crop production, and its importance in crop productivity, and food security of the country cannot be over emphasized”.

He also disclosed that the legal and regulatory framework for fertilizer quality control would enable the Federal Government Inspectors to undertake periodic quality control at fertilizer production plants, ports of discharge, and market outlets.

The Permanent Secretary disclosed that fertilizer samples would be drawn by inspection officials for laboratory analysis. He said that government has identified some violations in the sub-sector which include plant nutrient deficiencies, misbranding, adulteration, short weight of bags, bagging quality, operating without certificate of registration or with expired certificate of registration.

Echono, however, condemned the activities of some unscrupulous players who have been ripping farmers off the benefit accruable from their investment in fertilizer. He maintained that the obligation of the government under the policy statement is to ensure and enforce quality control of fertilizer through the establishment of a market-friendly, legal regulatory framework that is adopted and legislated by the ministry.

He said, “the legal and regulatory framework for fertilizer quality control will provide the Federal Government Inspectors the power to undertake periodic quality control at the fertilizer production plants, fertilizer samples to be drawn by inspection officials for laboratory analysis, payment of inspection fees, and guidelines for proper labeling,” among others.

Meanwhile, Echono assured that a draft Fertilizer Bill sent by the Ministry to the National Assembly had passed the first reading and it is expected to be passed into law soonest. He maintained that the present administration’s drive in the agriculture sector of the economy is geared towards employment generation, food security, and poverty reduction.

Earlier in her welcome address, the Deputy Director, Quality Control, FMARD, who is also the Project Manager, Chinyere Akudinobi, stated that the project was aimed at developing and implementing a functional fertilizer regulatory system in the country which she said would address the problems of fertiliser quality in Nigeria. Making a presentation on the project, Akudinobi noted that while fertilizer consumption was estimated at about 790,000 metric tonnes annually, 280,000 metric tonnes was blended locally while the rest was imported.