Agriculture can erase poverty in Nigeria – Israeli agric minister

Nigeria and Israel last week signed a Memorandum of Understanding on agricultural cooperation. What are the specifics of the agreement?In October last year, when the Nigerian minister of agriculture was in Israel, we signed a declaration identifying the areas and after working out with the professional teams we put them in writing. Basically there are […]

Nigeria and Israel last week signed a Memorandum of Understanding on agricultural cooperation. What are the specifics of the agreement?
In October last year, when the Nigerian minister of agriculture was in Israel, we signed a declaration identifying the areas and after working out with the professional teams we put them in writing. Basically there are six areas that we have identified to deal with and it covered all parts of agriculture including irrigation, fisheries and different kinds of research that we want to do.
It is a long list. It is a detailed document and more than just a Memorandum of Understanding. It went into details because we agreed with the Nigerian minister of agriculture that we do not want to just sign papers but to implement it and in order to do so, we have to go into details. So it is very detailed; it’s a long list including dealing with disease and friendly fertilizers and many issues that involve modern agriculture and training.
Until 2010, I think there was exchange of training with people coming from Nigeria to Israel and because of some bureaucratic reasons it was stopped and now we are going to renew the process so that people would come from Nigeria for three, six or nine months depending on the proportion of needs and get specific training.
What informed the present Memorandum of Understanding?
This agreement is to cement the commitment of both countries. You see, you meet somebody, you talk and in politics it is such that you might not be there in a year or so and then what? But when it is on paper it is a commitment not only of myself as a person but of Government of Israel and the project from agriculture can go on for years and not something you do at a go but a chain of things and you have to understand that those that would do the job are private companies. And private companies will not go into an adventure if they don’t see continuity and this kind of paper will give some kind of stability or some kind of continuity that the two governments are responsible for. For example, an Israeli company wants to come here to invest; they want to be assured that the Israeli government is supporting them in case something happens.
Can you give an insight into the proposed Israel/Nigeria agricultural business partnership to increase investment and financing between the private sectors of both countries?
Unfortunately, for some reasons, we did not have enough time to prepare a delegation of business men to join me for this visit but we would do it on some other visit. Israel is a tiny country but we have a very strong private sector and they are all over the globe and they are to choose between countries and it is democratic and I cannot force them on where to go. I can give them incentives; I can assure them that this is a good place to be. Of course at the end of the day, the private sector look for financing and they want to be assured that the financing exists and in the case they are taking loans and they want guarantees and in some cases, we as Government of Israel we guarantee the loans they are taking in order to do projects and in this case in Nigeria. But when we are giving guarantees, we are always asking them who their partners in Nigeria are to make sure the partners are real.
How soon would the agreement be implemented?
We are starting immediately. There is no other pre-condition in order to do that and me and my delegation and other relevant people would take it back to Israel. As I said, in October we made a declaration. Then it was exchange of papers between Nigeria and Israel. The professional staff is already familiar with the issues. I believe that very soon, we would get request to send trainees to Israel and I know the ministry of water resources is planning to be in Israel in the next two months, the same goes for other officials and immediately we start working.
How did Israel get to its agricultural advancement?
Israel is not a typical story, but a unique one. About 20 to 30 years ago, young Israelis started to immigrate from all over the world back to Israel, and if you want to build a nation, you have to start with agriculture and then they started slowly, slowly and encountered some difficulties which as a result established a research institute and agricultural schools. This was the first infrastructure even before they started the cultivation of land and they started to bring Jews who are experts in agriculture and today we have very good agricultural institutions and we are quite advanced in all areas regarding agriculture.

What does Israel stand to gain from the agreement?
We believe that we will be blessed as a nation only if we would share with others, help others and look for friends around the globe to assist. We cannot stay alone and keep everything to ourselves. Of course, there are some countries which are rejecting us. But the bottom line as a nation-to-nation is that we are looking for friendship and sharing things together. The people I met here seem to share the same values. For the private sector, they are looking for business and from my point as a minister in the government, I would like my private sector to work all over the globe, make money but also serve my purpose. So, I would prefer them to sell agriculture products than arms.
But as part of celebration of Nigeria’s 100 years, we want to participate in erasing poverty on the platform of agriculture. We On the other hand, we want to be part of the war to eliminate terror and unfortunately in Israel we are experts in that area. That is our destiny that we have to fight all the time so we are ready to share this as well.
Over the years, Nigeria evolved many agricultural policies and programmes but it has not been able to get it right in agro development. What do you think is the problem?

I think that part of what I have seen here and what the Nigerian minister of agriculture emphasizes is that it is not just how to do agriculture but it is also a social system. If you are going to build a successful agriculture programme, it is very different to build it on individual farmers that will do some small piece of land, it will take millions of years until you get enough.So you have to do it on a larger scale. You don’t want only big companies to come here and to cultivate the land and the people will be only employees of those giant companies, so the solution that we have found in Israel is we build a social community that shares resources and working together with each of them owning private property but they work as one body and the system is working. From the outside, it looks like a normal village but inside it is deeper than that. In this case, you can take a large scale with larger grounds to cultivate which an individual cannot do. I believe it would work out basically because a community system exists in Nigeria and what we need to do is to provide them with modern tools and new technology on how to better use the soil, water resources and also the right seeds and plants.
 One of the problems of our agricultural products is that they are not meeting the international standards for export. Is the agreement going to address this too?
It is not stated in writing but we agreed with the Nigerian agriculture minister that it is going to be all along the food chain, meaning we need to add value. We have been able to fit the world-wide standard in Israel and people will come from Nigeria and would be trained on how to do it. It could be in area of factory standards, packaging or the staff. It is not something very sophisticated but you need the experience to handle what to do and what not to do.