As the World Food Day was celebrated around the globe yearly, the issue of adequate food for everyone came to the fore of development planning among nations. Although the current administration in Nigeria has placed some emphasis on agriculture as a viable alternative to oil revenue, millions of citizens still go to bed hungry every night due to inadequate food production, mounting poverty and a harsh economy. To conquer hunger and ensure food security in Nigeria, what can the government and other relevant stakeholders do? Dr Njideka Kelley examines the development.
To an agriculture expert, Mr Amos Eneyema, to conquer hunger and ensure food security, emphasis must continue to be placed on agriculture as a viable alternative to current free-fall of oil revenue as millions of citizens still go to bed hungry every night. Government must work assiduously with youths and banks to secure soft interest-free loans for subsistent or micro-farming nationwide and urgently.
Eneyema said policy makers must remove food production barriers while encouraging public investors’ participation. Improved seeds, chemicals, local farming tools, delivery and storage facilities, processing and packaging tools, among others, should be free and accessible.
He said food security is indeed vital; however, what can the masses of Nigeria do to help? Government cannot do everything. Let us jettison acquired tastes, please. What is the craze over noodles for instance, when all sorts of tubers abound in this blessed land? In the North where I stay, there are all sorts of potatoes and other tubers but everyone wants to eat rice.
Also an Agro farmer, Mr. Uko Uyo, said no nation can conquer hunger but with focus and discipline, it can be reduced. To achieve this, agriculture in its different phases must be encouraged. Agriculture from farming to processing and production to packaging and marketing must be pursued by the public and private sectors.
Uyo said relevant financing for all agricultural sub-sectors must be provided to encourage agriculture entrepreneurs while youths are encouraged to participate at all levels of agriculture. Furthermore, a viable database for agriculture must be built to reduce fraud, abuse and waste in the system.
He said the only way Nigeria can conquer hunger and ensure food security is for all Nigerians to be serious-minded in whatever they are doing. Many abandoned their responsibilities and became vultures of oil including farmers, fishermen, and miners, among others. We must all take the God-given gifts in each of us seriously to ensure food security as not all of us are farmers.
He advised that the government too must introduce interest-free loans through banks to all those who want to engage in farm work.
The Chairman, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr Femi Oke, said government should ensure five per cent or less interest on loans to farmers and assist them in obtaining machineries and farms implements.
He said the state governments should also allocate lands to those farmers cultivating on lower acres now to increase their farms areas.
The Managing Director, Elephant Group Plc, Mr Tunji Owoeye, said to attract investors into agriculture and its value chain, the Federal, States and Local Governments must have the political will to do that.
He said the political will must be on continuous basis and outlived successive Governments irrespective of the political party in power. Owoeye said there should also be increment on the yearly budgetary allocation to agriculture as the need arose.
He said in Nigeria the government must found an end to the clashes between farmers and herdsmen by insisting on herdsmen setting up ranches.
Owoeye said government should encourage mechanised farming and revisit the land Use Act. He said the Act should be amended to make it possible for traditional land owners to lease lands on long term basis for agriculture. He said all year planting should be encouraged by putting facilities in place for irrigation purposes.
To World Bank Consultant, Prof. Abel Ogunwale, the government and private sector need to boost post-harvest loss technology to improve food security and reduce vulnerability of resource-poor farmers.
Postharvest losses refer to grain, roots, fruits and vegetables that are lost or lose quality during processing, transport or storage.
According to the World Bank, improving post-harvest management (PHM) could avoid losses equivalent to the food needs of 48 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ogunwale said one of the biggest problems affecting the country’s agriculture and the agricultural market is post-harvest losses.
He explained that the benefit of bumper harvests has been negated by insufficient storage capacity and resulting post-harvest losses, adding that farmers’ lack of awareness and access to appropriate technologies, has led to tremendous loss. According to him, there have been several post-harvest losses from the producer to the consumer, linked to lack of proper harvest practices, transportation and cold storage facilities.
He stresses that technologies exist that needed to curb food losses after harvests, and the first thing farmers need to adopt them is awareness that the problem can be solved.
He urged the government to engage the private sector to reduce post-harvest losses. This, he added, will be effective since the private sector may adequately fill the knowledge gap when it comes to understanding the use and importance of these technologies among farmers.
Bio fortified food processing sector can generate thousands of jobs
For the Country Manager, HarvestPlus Nigeria, Dr Paul Ilona, there is need for the country to widely to adopt bio fortified food processing. According to him, the Nigeria bio fortified food processing sector has potential to attract millions of investment and generate thousands of jobs in the agriculture sector.
Bio fortification is defined as the enrichment of the natural content of selected micronutrients in crops.
Ilona noted that biofortification has continue to generate employment around farming including processing, packaging, distribution, marketing services ,adding that it has created jobs for young people, especially those in rural areas.
According to him, his organisation is initiating strategic partnerships that are needed to bring about the creation of value chains dominated by large processors and retailers. He explained that his organisation is promoting biofortified crops with special emphasis on iron, vitamin A and zinc.
Ilona said his organisation has provided biofortified maize rich in vitamins apart from new technologies that can make or break a farmer’s livelihood.
He said the organisation has worked with other stakeholders in Nigeria to develop supply chains for biofortified crops.
According to him, farmers are being linked to new technologies that could increase their livelihoods and improve the health of their families through better crops and better nutrition. He said it was a critical time to encourage new approaches to production that meet a country’s nutritional needs.
According to him, biofortification transforming food sector has potentially significant impacts on the off-farm segment and the knock-on effect on farming households.
Mr Kunle Olawoyin, a farmer said only 1.26 per cent was allocated this year to the agriculture sector that employs over 70 per cent of the population and this is unacceptable. So to ensure food security, States and Federal governments should increase investment in agriculture in line with the Malabo commitment of 10 per cent.
He said a responsible investment in small-scale agriculture is the best way to reduce rural poverty and hunger. Everyone should see farming as the way to go and not as occupation for the illiterate.
According to him, an average age of full-time farmers in Nigeria who are engaged in subsistence farming is put at 65 years and above. For any nation to overcome hunger or food shortage, the younger folks should take farming as a lucrative profession, and this must be well funded by government to attract huge patronage.
“Overcoming hunger in Nigeria is part of government responsibility with a complementary support from the people. Beyond slogans, action must be put in place to achieve this through a collaborative government/private initiative.
Government cannot ask farmers to go back to the farms and then loose hungry cows after the crops. If this measure is put in place, by 2021 Nigeria would have achieved food security. And whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
“I believe this is the only government that made agriculture a priority rather than depending on oils to move the nation forward. All hands must be on deck to ensure that food security is addressed. We should patronise made-in-Nigeria food to grow our economy and create employment for Nigerians.
“Let 2019 budget give major allocation to agriculture to boost food production. Any money given to the farmers should be monitored to avoid diversion.
“Although emphasis on agriculture has always been there, but implementation is our problem, due to corruption. To lure the youths to the farm and get the desired results, irrigation farming, mechanisation, loans, seedlings’ varieties and pesticides, among others, must be made available to farmers by January or February, against early rains so as to avoid associated bottlenecks, he said.
According to Mr. Chika Gordon, a mechanized farmer in Abia State said the states and local governments should follow federal government policies of agricultural revolution to boost food production in Nigeria instead of depending on foreign food. We have fertile land to grow agriculture but our so-called leaders are so lazy because of oil.
“I wish these oils will dry, let me know whether everybody will not engage in agriculture to survive. Government should ban some agricultural imports in order to allow local production to grow our economy and create employment even infrastructural development.
“Able-bodied youths both skilled and unskilled in both rural and urban areas idling away must be engaged into gainful farming urgently. Relevant financial institutions must issue monitored interest-free soft loans to identified youths for nationwide subsistence farming.
“All our natural fruits, games and seeds, among others wasting away in the bush must be rescued, processed and preserved with indigenous technology for future use. Regionalised Marketing Boards must come into function now.
“Let each state specialise in mass production of agricultural products where it has comparative advantage, backed by interest-free loans and well-equipped millennium settlements to lure the idle youths back to the farms.
“Good storage facilities, basic infrastructure and buy-back policies provided by governments at all levels will also go a long way,” he added.
Mr. Buga Dunj from Plateau State stated the need to protect domestic industries, especially food-related ones. There is no serious agricultural nation that doesn’t have one form of protectionism or another. Until we increase tariffs on imported food items in order to make the local ones a lot cheaper, we cannot grow in food sufficiency.
He said the thing to do is to remove all bans on imported food and simply introduce higher tariffs on food items that we have the capacity to meet domestic demand.
“Systematic long-term focused investment in agriculture can take us quite far into the future, if we sincerely commit to it.
In her view, the Managing Partner, New Generation Consulting, Dr Njideka Kelley, said World Bank report on poverty and hunger defines food security as “access by all people at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life”. But Nigeria and Africa are nowhere near achieving food security several factors are responsible for the food insecurity in Nigeria.
Kelley who is also the Conference Convener of the 2018 AfroAgric Expo said unclear economic policy of governments must first shift focus from an oil-based economy to an agricultural based economy. In so doing policies that favor agriculture can come into play ensuring that farmers are empowered to assure food security in their regions.
She said inaccessibility to funding for farmers: If agriculture can be seen as a major economic driver, then farmers must be encouraged through government subsidies for grains, fertilizers, farm equipment etc., adding that inadequate education of farmers on food preservation and many rural farmers have no education and are completely helpless when it comes to food preservation, proper application of fertilizers.
Kelley said low mechanized system of farming causing poor yield, because the rural farmers have not been empowered to be commercial farmers, they continue to practice subsistence farming which can only produce poor yields.
According to her, inaccessible roads from farm to market for farmers who have sufficient yields at harvest are unable to transport the harvest to the market due to terrible roads sometimes cut in half by erosion.
“Lack of organised farmers association to regulate prices and ensure profits: farmers are not organized properly into cooperatives and the ones already in cooperatives do not understand the power of teams so that they can regulate their prices and assure profits for farmers,” she added.
Kelley said to overcome these challenges, the agricultural sector’s strategic objectives and priority activities should include increased production and productivity of staple food crops through a value chain approach for food security, promote commercial agriculture; promote and increase value-adding activities for agricultural products, increase the production and export of cash crops, and improve access to finance for farmers.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria noted that funding in the Nigerian Agricultural sector is about two per cent of total lending by banks unlike six per cent in Kenya. The problem of financial inclusion is not peculiar to the agriculture sector but to the Nigerian economy at large.
For example, Central Bank of Nigeria noted that about 83.9 per cent of money in circulation is being circulated outside the formal banking sector. This implies that other sectors seek financial services outside the banking system.
Also, Nwankwo and Nwankwo reported the result of a study carried out by Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access, EFInA on access to financial service in Nigeria; 34.9 million (39.7 per cent) adults were financially excluded. (Michael OB (2016) Achieving Sustainable Economic Development in Nigeria through Financial Inclusion in the Agriculture Sector.
It would also be recalled that the Star Ultra Deep Petroleum Limited, a subsidiary of Chevron Nigeria has sponsored the training of 50 youths in Oyo State for a three months course at the OFFERCentre institute of Agriculture, Oluponna, Osun State and expressed its commitment to enhance agricultural business in Nigeria.
Chairman, Star Ultra Deep Petroleum Limited, Mr Lanre Kalejaiye, who was represented by the acting Director, Deep Water and Product Sharing Contract, (DW and PSC) Chevron, Mike Kabi, during the valedictory ceremony of the first set of capacity building graduating students at the centre, recently said, “We are also committed to making social investments that will add value to the people’s lives in several other spheres of human endeavor.”
From 500 applicants, the institute was able to select 50 young men and women to undergo a three month training sponsored by Ultra Deep Petroleum Limited, and others like Lukoil Oil Company, Oil and Gas Nigeria limited among others.
Kabi said: “Today’s graduation ceremony in agriculture and catering is another demonstration of the Co-venturers’ determined efforts to enhance the capacity building of Nigerians and improve agriculture.
“This economic development programme aimed at building capacity in young Nigerians to go into farming and to make farming a potential career and a business, is one of such investments.
“We believe it will have a tremendous impact on the youths in Oyo State through employment creation, poverty reduction, and livelihood improvement as well as support the development of rural-based cottage industries and development of the local economy. This will in no doubt boost government’s efforts in making agriculture a significant revenue yielding sector in the country. I therefore encourage our recipients to effectively make best use of the opportunity.”
The Rector of the institute, Reverend Father Macarius Olatunji in his address said the occasion was a celebration of the virtue of hope as ignited in the heart of the young men and women who had just graduated from the institute.
He said: “OFERCentre Institute of Agriculture has come to stay and is getting better and stronger to make meaningful contributions to the wellbeing of our beloved country.
“All these while, our training was focused on indigent youths, undergraduates and prospective and active farmers. However, with the coming of Star Ultra Deep, a subsidiary of Chevron, the outlook was focused on graduates who have passion for agriculture and want to develop skills for Agribusiness and other crafts.”
Speaking at the event, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development, Oyo state, Prince Oyewole Oyewumi, described the event as a pragmatic approach towards enhancing food production, poverty alleviation and job creation among other things.
He said: “The need to provide the necessary guidance and support for our youths cannot be over emphasized. This programme without doubt represents the Catholic Archdiocese of Ibadan’s determination to give unflinching support to the development of agriculture, and acquisition of skills for people in Nigeria as a whole.
“It is very relevant to state here that, OFFERCentre is determined to train both indigent and non-indigent youths, which invariably, according to her vision will improve the standard of living of the people in rural communities. This institution has been able to achieve all these by providing an enabling environment that promotes technical ability, proficiency and discipline of youths irrespective of creed, place and tribe.”
There is need for corporate citizens in Nigeria especially the oil and gas firms to take a cue from Chevron to secure sustainable food security for Nigerians.
