‘40% of our rice farm submerged by flood’

What is the size of your farm? The precise size of the farm is 53,277 hectares, but under cultivation at the moment is just under a 1000 hectares, because of the uncertainty with the rice policy. I do know that the Tunga axis is prone to a lot of flooding because of the River Benue […]

What is the size of your farm?
The precise size of the farm is 53,277 hectares, but under cultivation at the moment is just under a 1000 hectares, because of the uncertainty with the rice policy.
I do know that the Tunga axis is prone to a lot of flooding because of the River Benue and other dams in the area. Is your farm affected?
 Yes, as at Monday, we had about 40 percent of our cultivated area submerged in water. But we were lucky because most of our crops have grown beyond water level. However, a lot of the farmers in Nasarawa State, particularly in Awe Local Government, did not start planting till late August because heavy rain in that area didn’t start until about September. A lot of people’s crops have not reached the level where it can handle that level of water; so we are expecting them to lose the crop.
Did you take any insurance policy to mitigate the effect of this flood?
Firstly, it is part of our strategy that whatever we are doing within the farming space, we will always have some level of cover so we took an insurance cover from the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Cooperation’s (NAIC) for the total hectare. I think their assessment per hectare costs about N153,000 and we were lucky enough to have done that. However, majority of the smallholder farmers are not aware and those that are aware, I don’t believe can afford to pay that amount  of money, because we are talking of people that have one or two hectares.
How many seasons do you cultivate in a year?
We do both wet and dry seasons. The rainy season, which most farmers depend on to a large extent is cheaper, it is more volatile; as you can see now the flood has come with the rainy season and quite a bit of farm produce will be lost in comparism with the dry season when you are completely in control of the elements that affect your rice. At the moment, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the flood because I understand that the Cameroon one is still on its way. We will wait and see the level of damages if any, and we just have to adapt and deal with it.
Many experts believe the quality of seeds we have is so poor, which is responsible for low yield per hectare. How will you respond to that?
In terms of quality of the seeds, I do agree that we do have poor quality seeds. But that does not totally account for the low level of yield we get from our farmers. Number one, with the cost of fertilizer inputs, if these farmers are not able to put or apply it as it should be done, naturally you are going to get lower yield. Last year, we tried a method called (SRI) Systems of Rice Intensifications and averagely, we were able to get 4 to 4.5 tons per hectare in some blocks. We did it in blocks and in some blocks we got as high as 14 tons to 15 tons and in other blocks which did not do very well we got 3 to 4 tons. What this suggests is that with this method of Systems of Rice Intensifications, it is possible to achieve more yields but it is an expensive process because it involves using organic fertilizer; having a nursery, transplanting. The cost of doing all these is high, but yield is obviously higher.
Do you have a rice processing mill?
Yes, we already have a rice mill- a medium scale mill. But I will tell you the truth; milling as far as I am concerned is not farming. Milling is processing and it’s just another value added to the actual production of rice. The focus right now should not be on the milling capacity of the country, but the production capacity of the country. When production increases, naturally businessmen will come up with mills or mills will spring up in all parts of the country. As it is today, we have more mills and more people talking about mills and Millers Association talking about milling rather than talking about the actual production. I want to use this opportunity to point out to the government and Federal Ministry of Agriculture that millers are not farmers; millers are processors of farm products. So, we need to identify who exactly is calling or demanding or driving this sector.
Millers seem to have a lot of voice, the actual farmers don’t. But we need to understand that the farmers are the ones who go through the process of farming and employing. The milling aspect doesn’t employ as much as the farmers do. Millers gain more than farmers, so I think more attention should be given to farmers rather than the millers.