Road map to attaining food security in Nigeria

By Ibrahim Mohammed
Dr. Zayyad Abba Ruma,
Minister of Agric and Water Resources

The dominant green in Nigeria’s flag depicts fertility and strong agrarian potentials. Ironically, the nation seems incapable of tapping the immense opportunities bestowed on her by nature. When Nigeria attained independence in 1960, agriculture was the backbone of the economy.

Records have shown that agriculture once provided revenue for the business of government at a time when Nigeria was run on regional basis. It indeed provided revenues that were used to erect some of the most lasting infrastructures countrywide.

Agriculture presently contributes 40 per cent to the gross domestic product against 13 per cent by oil.

It also employs about two-thirds of the nation’s total labour force.

More significantly, agriculture is the source of livelihood for nearly three-quarters of Nigeria’s poor people in the rural communities.

Nigeria is blessed with vast agricultural space for cash and food crops. From the mangroves of the Niger Delta, through the rain forests to the savannah planes, root crops, cereals and fruits grow in and out of season. Between March and early November, every year, the country is blessed with abundant rainfall that is sufficient for agricultural life from the time of sowing to harvesting.

The period of dry season equally provides opportunity for farmers in the northern part of the country to practise irrigation. At any part of the year, agriculture thrives, and Nigeria can boast of recording maximum yield.

The favourable climatic conditions and the willingness of rural farmers to take advantage of it do not translate to a situation whereby Nigeria can safely claim to be self-sufficient and secure in the area of food production, storage and distribution.

Just as the country has failed to take due comparative advantage of surplus deposit of crude to scale up on the economy, she has also failed to take advantage of the favourable climatic conditions to be secure in food production. The net result is that food security remains one of those recurring goals that the country yearns for, but which keeps disappearing like a mirage.

On assumption of office in May 2007, President Umaru Yar’Adua made it clear that agriculture as provider of employment and food rank high on his seven-point agenda.

The question is, when will this goal be attained and how can we sustain it if attained? To understand the intricacies of this goal and locate answers to these posers, we need to understand what food security is all about. In agricultural parlance, there are variable conditions that must be met before a successful harvest takes place.

For instance, the farmer has to be well guided to know what portion of land is best suited for what particular crop. He must know the seasons and be at home with the movement of nature. He must also have knowledge of the market, to know what type of insecticide and crops treatment to apply; he must be able to tend his farm and groom it to maturity and harvest. He must know when to take his crops to the market and at what price to sell. What are the conditions of the roads through which the farmer travels; what is the situation of the market, and what is government doing to ensure that the farmer is protected from both natural and man-made disasters, such as flooding, communal clashes, glut in the market, among other factors. It is a combination of these variables that influence production, sustainability and food security. The whole question of access to food begins with the availability of fertile land, capacity to produce, appropriate pricing for both seller and buyer. In very plain terms, food security means "access by all people at all times to sufficient food and nutrition for a healthy and productive life." For the Food and Agricultural Organisation, however, a nation can said to have attained food security "when all people at all times have access to sufficient food to meet their dietary needs for a productive and healthy life."

Can Nigeria attain this goal in the next four years under the Yar’Adua administration? And thereafter, can Nigeria sustain the goal? On this, it should be urgently argued that on this subject, Nigeria is almost at crossroads.

Reason being that several efforts by previous governments to provide food security have failed to yield lasting results, either due to a lack of will or a deliberate ploy to frustrate good policy. Therefore, it is necessary to look back and examine previous efforts and why they did not yield optimal result. As aforementioned, Nigeria depended nearly 70 per cent on agriculture to run services and provide utilities and infrastructure at independence.

That was the trend until the collapse of the First Republic , and the discovery of vast deposit of oil and gas. That diverted attention from agriculture and placed all emphases on oil. Reference is often made of how Malaysia came to Nigeria in the 1960s to export palm oil seedlings. That was the time when Nigeria ranked among the largest producers of palm oil, as well as having vast plantations of cocoa, rubber, coffee and groundnut.

Unfortunately, these these were abandoned to prospect and sell crude oil. The earliest attempts by government to recover lost ground in the agriculture sector were in 1972, when former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon introduced the National Accelerated Food Production Programme and the Nigerian Agricultural and Co-operative Bank. Both were entirely devoted to funding agriculture. The attempt did not achieve much impact, either due to change in the leadership or due to the fact that earnings from oil had begun to erode the prime position that agriculture had occupied. But when the handwriting on the wall pointed to a gloomy economic future in the mid-70s, the Murtala/Obasanjo government made frantic attempts to return Nigeria to her prime place in agricultural production and the attainment of food security.

The Operation Feed the Nation programme launched in 1976, promised to cause a revolution in that sector. There were attempts to make the programme a popular one, whereby university undergraduates were deployed to rural areas to teach the peasants farmers how to farm. Secondary schools were to make the study of agriculture very practical.

Huge sums were budgeted to develop River Basins, to capture water for irrigation purposes. Farm settlements were to be developed to grow cash and food crops that will reduce dependence on food importation.

But the result was a colossal misplacement of resources, as politicians abused the process and there was no accountability. Not one River Basin was able to deliver some of the objectives for which they were established. Instead, Nigeria became a net importer of rice from America and Thailand.

As the Second Republic collapsed, the River Basins and the Green Revolution collapsed with it. The government of General Mohammadu Buhari introduced the Go Back (School) to Land programme with emphasis on instilling the culture of farming on the younger population who were in schools.

Individually, it worked as schools across the country begun to embrace agriculture. It was a practical experience, whereby, students were encouraged to develop own farmlands.

That programme gave way to Gen. Babangida’s Directorate for Foods Roads and Rural Infrastructure. There was so much hype then, but core professionals did not participate in the delivery of the policy. In the last eight years, there seemed to have been a lot of activities in the agriculture sector.

Too many programmes seemed to have been formulated with the aim of empowering farmers and building agro-based infrastructure. On paper, credit facilities and other financial instruments were introduced, to enhance capacity in agricultural development.

Storage tank (silos)have been built to strategically conserve grains. Yet, more rice was imported into Nigeria in the last eight years, more than at any other time.

Produce farmers have not gained any upper hand in the enhancement of production capacity and protection in the internal market. A lot seemed to have happened, but it has not transformed the status of agriculture as a neglected sector. It also has not transformed into any significant attainment of food security. In 1999, a bag of rice sold for between N2, 500 and N3,000. Today it goes for N10,000 and above. The same goes for a basket of tomato, fruits, vegetables and other basic food items that are staples in the homes. PRESENT CHALLENGE Nigeria ranks 20th on the 2006 Global Hunger Index.

Specifically, about 65 per cent Nigerians are food insecure, meaning that majority lack access to the amount and variety of food for a healthy and productive life. Invariably, malnutrition rules the land where about 40 per cent of children under age five are stunted. Some 9 per cent are wasted and 25 per cent are underweight.

These are clearly results of the poor performance of the agriculture sector. Statistics from the Food and Agricultural Organization indicate that in 2006 there were 14 million smallholder farmers in the country.

Sadly, however, majority of them still till the land using crude implements and largely traditional, inefficient methods. For instance, Nigeria can boast of just 30,000 tractors and only half of them are functional.

As a way forward, the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources has advocated the establishment of an agricultural development fund as the financial vehicle to drive the reform programmes aimed at attaining food security in Nigeria . In the next four years, the requisite funding is estimated at N950 billion.

Quite significantly also, government must show strong commitment and necessary political will by providing legal, administrative and governance framework for implementation of the following initiatives.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources is seeking a closer collaboration between government and the private sector. In the new thinking, the private sector should play a cardinal role in factory-driven, commercial agriculture that will entail contract farming and co-operatives in research and extension, mechanization, input provision, agro-processing storage and market development. An all inclusive approach is more likely to guarantee success.

Therefore, policy makers are now striving to involve the three tiers of government, the private sector and farming communities in the implementation of these initiatives.

Mohammed sent this piece from Abuja