Recent media reports indicated that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s Anchors Borrowers’ Programme had been a huge success, and that 12.2 million farmers had joined the rice and wheat revolution. Such reports also enthused that the country was moving close to self-sufficiency in the production of major grains. The reports quoted the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, as saying that the success of the agriculture revolution had turned thousands of rice farmers into millionaires and drastically reduced rice import.
Nigeria, by the Federal Government’s standard, may be doing well in millet, sorghum and maize cultivation. But, by world standard, it is only trying to produce more grains for food. It is trying to succeed, but needs to put in more efforts in order to achieve success in food production. Nigeria may also be the second largest producer of sorghum after the United States; the third in millet after India; but the fact remains that reliance on small-holder farmers, who use simple implements such as hoes and cutlasses (as the country has been doing for ages), is too risky for Nigeria in the 21st Century.
The rapid production decline was signalled by the disbandment of marketing boards. Today, Nigeria occupies the seventh position in cocoa production, even with the availability of new hybrid Cocoa that can start fruiting from 18 months instead of the erstwhile four years
It is indeed a shame that the 12.2 farmers, said to have joined the rice and wheat revolution, cannot move the nation to self-sufficiency because they are small-scale farmers. But if the government encourages 10 per cent of the country’s population to go into large-scale farming, cultivating millet, sorghum, maize, wheat and rice, among other agricultural products, Nigeria will not only become one of the global players in the production of these agricultural products, it will also become a veritable exporter of grains to other countries.
Nigeria leads the world in yam and cassava production. The country’s leadership in the production of the two items amounts to nothing if it cannot add value to them before exportation. In other words, these products must be processed into yam flour and cassava flour before they are exported so that they can command higher prices in the export market.
Time was when Nigeria was the second largest producer of cocoa. As the years rolled by, farmers rendered effete by reason of old age reduced replanting of new cocoa trees, and production fell drastically. The rapid production decline was signalled by the disbandment of marketing boards. Today, Nigeria occupies the seventh position in cocoa production, even with the availability of new hybrid Cocoa that can start fruiting from 18 months instead of the erstwhile four years. In effect, for Nigeria to increase production capacity, it must embrace modern large-scale farming with improved disease resistant, high-yielding hybrid cocoa.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Nigeria is one of the least mechanised-farming countries in the world. A shocked Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, discovered, recently, that the estimated total number of tractors in the country was about 35,000; over 50 per cent of which had broken down owing to the nature of the farmlands, lack of sustainable products’ sales services and poor maintenance culture.
Agricultural experts agree that the low level of mechanisation limits the ability of farmers to expand cultivation areas that would have increased food production to reduce hunger and poverty among Nigerians. Data from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation also showed that Nigeria is ranked 132, out of 188 countries, on per capita basis, worldwide, in terms of the number of tractors in the country. They observed that Nigeria had a record deficit of more than one million tractors, going by the country’s farming population and size of arable land as well as global standards.
Small-holder farming, using hoes and cutlasses, cannot increase agricultural production in the quantum needed to substantially lift up agricultural production in the country. It will put more hands in agriculture but does not guarantee large-scale farming in the way that will benefit Nigeria. It does not in any way help in catapulting it to a global player in grains and other agricultural items’ production. The country should embrace large-scale farming as it is done in the US, Brazil and the other advanced world, as the 10 per cent of the country’s population involved in large-scale mechanised farming lacks the capacity to feed the whole country. These few large-scale farmers can also engage the current small-holder farmers in their outgrower farms and buy back their agricultural proceeds at guaranteed prices. Other countries that have become global players in food production have traversed this route; Nigeria’s case cannot be different. That is what the country needs and it is the way to go at this point in time, to achieve accelerated agricultural production.
Going forward, the government must embark on a strategic agricultural production plan to increase the quantum of food production for the local market and for exports. In doing this, targets must be set against the unflinching will to mechanise agriculture in Nigeria.
