‘FG not carrying farmers along’…Research institutes poorly coordinated

How has farming been this rainy season?It has been terrible for those of us that listened to the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Adesina and embarked on wheat and rice production.Terrible in the sense that we harvested our wheat following the promise he made to us that they will come and buy but we did not […]

How has farming been this rainy season?
It has been terrible for those of us that listened to the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Adesina and embarked on wheat and rice production.
Terrible in the sense that we harvested our wheat following the promise he made to us that they will come and buy but we did not see him come and buy the wheat several months after harvest. And due to lack of silos or a good place to keep the wheat, about 70 percent of what I harvested got spoilt. I sold the little left at Mafara market at N4,200 per 50 kilogrammes bag which is far below production cost.
It was terrible embarking on rice farming also because I was only able to get two tonnes from a hectare because I used very poor seeds given through the GES. My neighbour that used rice seeds he bought directly from the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR) in Zaria got over five tonnes from a hectare. You know the GES seed government is distributing is being supplied by contractors and has very low yield.
Have you brought this to the notice of government?
Which government? The minister claims to know everything and that is why he is only leading the government on a wasteful venture. He has no dealings with the farmers; not even the apex farmers’ body, AFAN. That is why so many things are done wrongly by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. You can imagine a situation where farmers are given grains as seed through the GES when our research institutes have hybrid seeds in stock just because someone somewhere is making money from the contract for the supply of grains through GES to unsuspecting farmers calling it seed. If the minister has been carrying farmers along all this while, he would have realised this and many other problems and resolved them long ago, but he believe he knows everything and can do it alone.
If the research institutes have better seeds, why don’t you advice the contractors supplying through GES to be buying from the institutes?
The agricultural research institutes are all under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture that buys and distributes the poor yielding seeds to farmers through the GES. The question now should be, why can’t the minister channel the money he is wasting in paying contractors for the supply of that waste he calls seed to the institutes to produce more improved seeds and give to farmers? The minister lacks the idea just as the supporting government officials are only after what they will get and not making the system perfect.
Again, the research institutes themselves are not properly coordinated. The Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) does not seem to know its mandate. Almost all the research institutions have problems of lack of fund, obsolete equipment and lack of encouragement because the agency that supervises their operations, ARCN, is so disorganised that when you go there you will discover that nothing is happening. They can never make a case for the research institutes because they do not have the interest of the job and the farmers at heart.
Can you imagine that all the seeds the contractors are distributing to Nigerian farmers are not tested and certified by any research institute, and ARCN that claimed to be coordinating research activities in the country has never found it right to advice government, that look, let some of the institutes start checking what these contractors are supplying in addition to every other process the seeds pass through. Many farmers are now rejecting the GES seeds which is a slight on government.