Godwin Oyedokun: September 2008

By Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki [i]

Courtesies,

I wish to start my address tonight with the story of a Nigerian:

“My name is Uzodinma Usman Obafemi. I am a Nigerian farmer. I am 60 years old. I have no formal education. I have been a farmer almost all my life because my parents and grand parents are farmers. Most of what we produced went into feeding ourselves. Some years, when the harvest is good, we have a little surplus from our farms, which we sell in the neighbouring markets and earn a little money.

When I was 20 years old, I took a patch of land of about 2 hectares near our village and I started my own farm. Since then, I have been farming the way I learnt it from my parents, using hoes and cutlasses and constantly waiting on the rains. Even though I have farmed for more than 40 years, I am still poor. I believe my condition should change because I work very hard, but I don’t know what to do to bring about this change. All my young children who could have assisted me in the farm have all gone to the city in search of other jobs. They consider farming a difficult and backward occupation.

I heard that one can borrow money from banks to buy new seeds, fertilisers and pesticides and to also hire tractors, but since I can’t read or write I don’t even know how to go about it. I depend on government to bring fertilisers, but most of the time, it does not come and when it comes, it is either too late or too little.

In some seasons when the yield is good, I get about 2 tonnes of harvest from my farm. But I heard that in some countries, they get up to 6 tonnes or even 8 tonnes from the same size of farms. I wonder how they do this. However, whenever the rain is late or is short I do not even get up to 2 tonnes. When this happens, I don’t get enough to feed my family not to talk of earning some money to pay for other things.

In the seasons that I get good harvest, I always have too much than my family can consume, and we don’t know what to do with the surplus. The only option left to me is often to sell it for cheap at the village market or it goes to waste.”

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, this story reflects the reality of most of our farmers, which we often conclude represent 70% of our population. Interestingly, poverty reports also say 70% of our population live below the poverty line. Is this a mere coincidence, or are we to suggest that there is a correlation between agriculture and poverty? I will be reluctant to suggest so. Yet, the story I started with represents a typical face of a Nigerian farmer, trapped in a vicious circle of endless hard labour, and caught at the very edge of survival.

Former President of Zambia, Sir Keneth Kaunda said at a recent forum in Pretoria that the challenge of his generation was to fight colonialism and lead Africa into self-rule. He said the challenge of our generation is to fight poverty and lead Africa into prosperity. I cannot agree more with this assertion.

There are many approaches and understanding of what needs to be done to tackle poverty and achieve prosperity in Africa and in Nigeria. However, as the largest employer of our people, agriculture remains the life-blood of our nation and the best guarantee of achieving sustainable economic development.

I have a firm belief that improving the capacity of Nigerians to achieve development must be driven through a well-articulated strategy of developing Nigeria’s capacity in agriculture. In other words, our dream of the new Nigerian farmer must be driven by a vision of a new Nigerian agriculture.

I am delighted to note that the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) projects an 8% growth in agriculture. It has been observed that even a 6% national growth is enough to make the African farmer prosper, achieve food security and create wealth.

However, this is not the first time we would be setting targets and seeing visions in Nigeria. What is more important is the desire and the will to do all that is necessary in achieving our set targets, whether in the general end-goal of reducing poverty and achieving prosperity, or the related strategic goal of developing agriculture.

When I became the governor of Kwara State in 2003, my first major concern was how to arrest the widespread poverty that I saw all around me. The first thing for me was to explore existing opportunities and how these opportunities could be employed to achieve quick results. I did not hesitate in accepting that the best entry-point we have for tackling poverty is through agriculture.

Kwara State has a substantial cultivable area representing 75.3% of total land area or about 2,447,250 hectares, which has been found suitable for almost all forms of food and cash crops. However, only about 11% of this was being cultivated by small farm holders, with an average farm size ranging between 1-2 hectares.

Before the end of that first year, we inaugurated a pilot scheme called Back-To-Farm. Under this programme, a total of 868.35 hectares of land was cultivated in 80 sites across the 16 Local Governments of the State using the existing vehicles of the State’s Farmers’ Council and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Through the Farmers’ Council, we gave out money to farmers to prepare designated farmlands, and we provided seedlings, chemicals and fertilizers. Then we used the ministry of agriculture to supervise the scheme.

However, the outcome did not quite justify the enthusiasm and the investments that went into that programme. In retrospect, we realized a fundamental mistake we made: we have tried to mount a new carriage on an old horse that was also ill. So, we couldn’t go far.

For one, the farmers that participated in the programme largely saw the money and the inputs we gave them as their own dividend of democracy. So, there was no commitment, or even intention on the part of majority of them to pay back or even get results that would justify the investments.

Secondly, we found that most of the farmers are in their 60s and 70s and they lack any form of formal education. We found that they used very little or no fertilizer and it came as no surprise that the best yield recorded was between 1 to 2 tonnes per hectare.

We also found that the ministry of agriculture that we left in charge of the programme had been moribund for many years; they had not been called upon to do anything in a long time. Therefore, they had not had any new training or even experience to cope with the kind of challenge that we gave them.

Therefore, we learnt that trying to spoon-feed farmers would not work. We also learnt another important lesson regarding subsidy, especially regarding fertilizer distribution.

It has always been suspected that only 10-20% of subsidized inputs get to the actual farmers. Rather, they only help to enrich black marketers and unscrupulous officials. We found that despite repeated announcements on radio, telling farmers that fertilizers were available; our warehouses were still full of fertilizers for months because we managed to block all avenues of diversions and other leakages.

What all these taught us was that we needed a radical approach and policy for agriculture if we must use agriculture to drive our poverty reduction efforts and create wealth.

The core issue here is that we must rise above the subsistence level, and move into large scale commercial farming that would guarantee increased productivity while gradually integrating the small farm holders into the core farming centres.

This was the genesis of our commercial agriculture initiative with the Zimbabwean farmers. Under this project, we have been able to bring an additional 2,000 hectares under cultivation and, after the first harvest last year; we are expanding to 4,000 hectares this year. We are even more confident that this programme will generate substantial marketable surplus in food and cash crops that will encourage the development and expansion of local agri-processing and agricultural exports.

The key objective here is increasing yield per hectare. Where our local farmers are achieving maximum of 2 tonnes per hectare in maize for example, the Zimbabwean farmers would be doing a minimum of 6 tonnes for the same size of land, with the possibility of even surpassing this.

I must thank His Excellency, President Olusegun Obasanjo for his support on this project, and I am glad to note that through his abiding interest and encouragement, some of my colleagues have shown significant interest in replicating this scheme in their own States and have even commenced negotiations with the Zimbabwean farmers after visiting our State.

Even though the Zimbabwean farmers’ project has been the better known of our agriculture programme, for us the more exciting is the Integrated Youth Farm Centre, which we hold as is the future of commercial agriculture in Nigeria.

The Integrated Youth Farm is conceived to create a successor-generation of farmers, by bringing well-educated and relatively educated young men and women together at a camp in Malete, about 45 kilometres out of the State capital, Ilorin.

At the centre, the youths are being taught the rudiments and dynamics of modern agriculture, from farming to farm management, agriculture mechanization and intensive farming in a broad range of agriculture areas, including animal production.

This programme is directly linked with our commercial agriculture initiative and is headed by one of the expatriate farmers from Zimbabwe who co-ordinate training activities. The farm currently houses 100 students who would soon complete their training.

Another main focus of our agriculture initiatives is irrigation, which is also central to agriculture development in the country generally. Because of their exclusive dependence on rain, our farmers can only plant once in a year, thereby severely limiting their productivity. With irrigation however, they can farm throughout the year and achieve double cropping. This has a direct advantage in increased income, and increased productivity.

We have tried to achieve this with our irrigated rice scheme in Duku-Lade, Patigi local government of our State. The irrigation facility was built in the 1960s by the then Northern Nigerian Government of Sardauna Ahmadu Bello to provide irrigation service on an 800ha of land. The facilities had since broken down and abandoned for many years. After reviving the scheme, for the first time last year we were able to witness dry season harvest of rice in our State.

However, a lot more investments need to go into the development of irrigation system in the country. The Federal Government must give irrigation development a priority attention because it is more than what a single State can handle. However, the States can focus on the development of medium and small-scale irrigation facilities for the small landholders. Countries like Vietnam, India and Brazil that have achieved great success in irrigation farming were able to do so through micro-irrigation technology that can be delivered with a few hundreds of dollars.

Another very crucial aspect of our agriculture development that we must focus on is processing. We have been producers of raw materials for too long. The penetrative capacity of our produce in the regional and international market however depends on value-addition. Because of failure to add values to our produce, our farmers end up working for manufacturers. I learnt recently that for every dollar earned by the local coffee farmer, traders and firms further up the value-adding chain received $13. This is what makes value addition through processing of agricultural goods very crucial.

The Federal policy that a minimum of 10% of bread flour must be made of cassava presents an important opportunity for value-addition. In collaboration with the Nigerian Institute for Tropical Agriculture, IITA in Ibadan, we have tried to build up cassava yield and also develop processing capacity in the State.

Through the Cassava Resource and Technology Transfer Centre (CRTTC) in Ilorin we have set up a large Cassava Processing Factory for High Quality Cassava Flour and cassava chips in each of the other senatorial districts have the capacity to produce 3 tonnes per day of dried product.

We have also set up one Micro-Processing centres in each of our 16 Local Governments. The work on these has reached advanced stages while others have been completed.

We have no doubt that all these actions would position Kwara State as leading producer of cassava products, not only for exports but also for use by the local bread flour mills, the Dangote Flour Mills. This on the whole will provide a guaranteed market for our farmers, thereby eliminating one major problem that farmers have always contend with.

Our on-going efforts in the construction of a new terminal building and a cargo terminal at the Ilorin international airport with the active support of the Federal government is one other strategic contribution we are making to develop the export capacity of our farmers. The Federal Government’s designation of the Ilorin International Airport as a cargo airport and the plan to construct industrial cold room will greatly facilitate export trade in agriculture produce, such as fruits, dairy, flowers and vegetables. This is very crucial. Even though we are lucky to have such a huge national market, we must begin to develop our capacity in penetrating the international market, especially for tropical produce.

Perhaps, one major attitude change that is required is for us to see agriculture as serious business. This attitude change is necessary for us to achieve the kind of funding that is necessary in the development of this sector. It is gratifying to note that this year alone, provision has been made for a N50 billion (US $350m) single digit interest rate lending to farmers. Of this, N30 billion is to be provided for by commercial banks while the balance will be jointly granted by the Central Bank of Nigeria, development and agricultural banks as well as state governments. This is the first time in the history of agriculture that this is happening in Nigeria. We must sustain this initiative and build on it.

As I said earlier, both the governments and the private sector have crucial roles to play here, not only because it holds great responsibilities for us all, but also because it offers great opportunities. We have mentioned some of the things that governments at all levels need to do, but government should begin to withdraw from buying tractors and bulldozers.

We should invite the private sector to set up Agric Malls that would serve as one-stop shop for farmers. Farmers can go to these malls and hire tractors and other mechanization tools for fee. This way, an average farmer does not need to raise millions of naira to buy a tractor, and government is relieved of all the problems associated with buying and maintaining tractors.

One other area that we must focus on in increasing productivity in agriculture is our use of fertilizer. It has been observed that we use too little fertilizer in this country. Where we use about 7kg of fertilizer, an average farmer in a western country would use 100kg. If we must use more fertilizer however, we need to first develop our production capacity by setting up urea production plants across the country.

Development of physical infrastructure like good roads is a necessary pre-condition for achieving economic growth. Investments in road networks and efficient transportation systems that will enhance farm-market linkage are very crucial to the development of agriculture. This is another major area of responsibility for the governments.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, as I said earlier, my vision of a new Nigerian farmer is built on my vision of a new Nigerian agriculture. I have outlined some of the strategic actions we need to take to achieve the new Nigerian agriculture.

I have a dream of the new Nigerian farmer. And I believe that with all the initiatives and interventions I have outlined, that dream will someday soon become a reality.

I dream of a day when farming would no longer be regarded as mere means of survival but as a business in its own right with all the potentials and possibilities that come with any other business.

I dream of a day when graduates of accounting or banking and finance would prefer to own and run their own farms rather than seek banking jobs; a day when young men and women who hold degrees in Engineering or any other degree for that matter, would opt for a career in farming, not because they have no options but because they regard farming as a more lucrative enterprise.

I dream of a young man or woman in jeans and T-shirt walking into a bank with his lap-top. And on his computer is able to make a cash-flow analysis and other business arguments to persuade a bank to give him credits based on demonstrated profitability of his farming venture.

And I dream of a day when bankers would be milling around farms seeking business and competing for farmers’ bank accounts.

I dream of a Nigerian farmer that is capable of taking advantage of technologies and products of research to multiply his yield; when from one hectare, he would harvest 10 tonnes of maize and 40 tonnes of cassava.

I dream of a Nigerian tomato farmer who would not be satisfied with his job until he is able to process and package tomato puree and deliver it directly to the supermarkets.

I dream of a new Nigerian farmer with a minimum of 50 hectares of land, and applying 100kg of fertiliser at the right time, instead of 7kg when it is too late.

I dream of a day when the children of the rich will take to farming and the children of the poor will not seek to escape from the farm. A day when farms would be run by the 5^th and 6^th generations of family owners. A day when, not 70% but only a fraction of our population would be involved in agriculture and would use this to feed the rest of the country and export.

The Nigerian farmer of my dream is one who is familiar with products of agricultural research and innovation, and he is able to use it to expand his productivity and profitability. He can farm all year round because has the benefit of irrigation. He is able to invest in and use the information technology to locate and access markets worldwide. He is able to integrate forward through value-addition activities like processing, packaging and so on. He can stand proudly anywhere in the world and say, I am a new Nigerian farmer. That is the farmer of my dream.

Conclusion:

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, my dreams can become a reality in the not too distant feature. However, we still need to do so much to bring about this day. The government of Kwara State is firmly focused on doing all that is necessary to make this day a reality. I believe by the time other States like Nassarawa, Oyo, Kano and Kebbi take off along the same line; if we have about 30 States in Nigeria driving agriculture along the line envisioned by the Federal Government, that day will not be long in coming.

Ladies and gentlemen, countries like China and India have proven to us that we must device our own path to achieving development. They have shown what is possible in one generation of commitment, vision and determination. They have shown that it is possible to affect even global economies by developing the rural economy. They have shown that population need not be a curse; in fact, it could be a major assets. These are the lessons we must embrace as we seek to pursue our vision of a future that guarantees happiness and better quality of lives for our children.

Thank you and God bless.

[i] The Executive Governor of Kwara State delivered this keynote speech at the National Economic Summit Group Dinner in Abuja, June 8, 2006

Thursday, September 4, 2008

In house Computer Training programme

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Tuesday, September 2, 2008

My Vision of the New Nigerian Farmer

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