Break down of river gate drops rice production in Niger

Rice farmers in Chanchaga village of Lavun Local Government located few kilometers away from the ancient town of Bida, can no longer enjoy the benefit of multiple cropping following the collapse of the river’s embankment. The incident that happened about five years ago, is yet to be rectified and that has forced the people of […]

Rice farmers in Chanchaga village of Lavun Local Government located few kilometers away from the ancient town of Bida, can no longer enjoy the benefit of multiple cropping following the collapse of the river’s embankment. The incident that happened about five years ago, is yet to be rectified and that has forced the people of the area, who are predominantly rice farmers to only farm the crop once in a year  – during the rainy season  – instead of the annual double cropping they were used to, thereby reducing their productivity.
Mohammed Babagana who has been a rice farmer for the past 20 years, said he has been harvesting about 100 bags of rice from his five-hectare farmland every year, lamented that he would have produced twice that quantity or even more through irrigation farming but for the fact that his only source of irrigation water was damaged.
Babagana who is also the chairman of Spy-Web Farmers Cooperative Society Limited, Chanchaga, said since the river embankment broke down, officials from Fadama III and those of the state government have visited the site of the damage and assessed it but that nothing has yet been done to repair it.
When this reporter visited Chanchaga village, farmers were seen busy tilling the land toward getting their farms ready for this year’s raining season farming. Most of the farmers were busy spraying chemicals and heaping the ground, all preparatory for rice farming.
Also speaking to Daily Trust, another farmer, Ahmed Shehu corroborated what Babagana said on the damaged embankment of the only river that supplied them with irrigation water, saying he could harvest twice the quantity of what he harvests now because of the dam problem.
He said he did not benefit from the federal government’s e-wallet fertilizer distribution because he had no confidence on the workability of the new system of distributing the commodity, hence his inability to register at the time names of those interested from their community was being compiled.
But the chairman of the rice farmers said apart from the broken down dam, inadequate supply of subsidized fertilizer is also affecting rice farming in the area, noting that though the farmers are getting fertilizer through other agencies of government in the area, they have never gotten supply from the state government.
He said the National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI), Badegi has been a source of sustaining rice farming in the area, as it is always sold fertilizer and other assorted farm inputs to farmers in the area on credit. He said the institute, under its buy-back arrangement, also provides stable market for agricultural produce in the area as it buys the products from the farmers.
He said this year, the Fadama III in the area distributed some fertilizer in their neighbouring community, saying farmers in the area are also benefiting from the federal government e-wallet fertilizer distribution scheme as many rice farmers that formally registered under the scheme from their villages were redeemed with two bags of fertilizer, consisting of Urea and NPK, and a bag of rice seeds at subsidized rate of N6,000.
The chairman of Spy-Web however, complained that the rice seed supplied to the farmers through the e-wallet system was not of good quality as those that tried it reported that after planting the seed, it refused to bear grains, blaming the inability of the seeds to yield on being over processed before they were supplied.
Contacted on the role of NCRI to the catchment communities, the institute’s Seeds Officer, Dr. Maji Alhassan said from the inception of the research institute, 62 varieties of rice seeds were released to rice farmers.
He said at the beginning, most rice farmers were only interested on planting the tall variety but further research work revealed that the dwarf variety gave better yield in the area because it has the capacity of carrying more grains.
He added that the research institute developed varieties of rice species to suite different types of ecology, particularly for the upland and lowland, saying at present there are only two varieties that are predominant with the local farmers in the area.
Dr. Alhassan further stated that under good ecology, it was expected that a farmer harvests not less than four to five tons per hectare, saying in a situation where there is super ecology, that is where you have good control of water and maximum fertilizer, a farmer is expected to harvest not less than seven to eight tons of rice per hectare.
According to him, a variety that has early maturity takes 90 to 110 days before harvest, depending on whether it is direct planting or transplanting, noting that there are also medium maturity variety that could be harvested after 120 days.
He said apart from giving quite a number of varieties of rice seeds to the farmers, the research institute also collaborates with some companies that provide the farmers with all types of input on credit which they paid back after harvest as well as ready made market for their produce.
The seeds officer lamented the poor patronage of the institute by Niger State government, saying with over 800,000 hectares of rice fields, the state is capable of producing 1.6 million metric tons of rice which is about 30 percent of national output.
Contacted, the state Commissioner for Agriculture, Ahmed Matane said his ministry will investigate the issue of non-geminating seeds, adding that a committee has already been set up to assess all irrigation schemes with a view of resuscitating rice farming.
He added that plan is also underway for the state government to partner with NCRI, particularly at this time when the state is going into a rice consortium project.