‘Insurgency forced farmers to abandon 3,500 hectares of wheat in the Chad Basin’

What is the Chad Basin Development Authority (CBDA) doing to encourage wheat production?Well, the Federal Government’s efforts to ensure food security in the country cannot be over emphasised. At the moment, the CBDA, which is one of the largest River Basins in the country, is tasked with the responsibility of boosting the production of rice […]

What is the Chad Basin Development Authority (CBDA) doing to encourage wheat production?
Well, the Federal Government’s efforts to ensure food security in the country cannot be over emphasised. At the moment, the CBDA, which is one of the largest River Basins in the country, is tasked with the responsibility of boosting the production of rice and wheat. And we have taken the challenge and we are making progress in the production of wheat. You may recall that sometime in 2011, we came up with a concept in the Chad Basin referred to as the Triple R, meaning Rehabilitation, Resuscitation and Restoration of the Basin. This has yielded results. During the last year’s winter season, we cultivated 5,000 hectares of wheat. This was done in collaboration with the Borno State Government. Unfortunately, because of the Boko Haram insurgency, we were able to harvest only 30 per cent of what was cultivated. If we had successfully harvested the 5,000 hectares, we would have been talking of injecting 200 metric tonnes of wheat into the market.
What happened to the remaining 70 per cent of the wheat abandoned?
Because of the insurgency, the project as a whole had to come to a standstill because the workers in New Marte had to leave and the farmers themselves had to abandon their farms.  As such, we lost over 70 per cent of our harvest.
Going by the fact that you lost much last year, what are your plans for this year?
We are taking the whole of this year to do some turnaround maintenance. Our Power House in New Marte has some technical problems and we are trying to see how we can rehabilitate it. Unfortunately, our engineers who are supposed to come from the United Kingdom could just not make it to New Marte because of the insurgency. Each time you invite them, they would tell you that they just read in the newspapers that this is what is happening in Borno State and, therefore, they cannot come. But, we are trying to see how we can do some turnaround so that by next year, all things being equal, we should be able to start with 10,000 hectares.
Does that mean farmers around the Chad Basin would remain at home throughout this year?
The farmers are cultivating locally but, of course, they cannot get the support that we normally used to give them, but they are there doing local farming.
And the power house you are talking about, is it for irrigation purpose only?
The power house has the capacity to produce 30 megawatts of electricity. And 30 megawatts at the moment is enough to power the whole of the north-east. In the initial concept, the power house that was built in 1973 was supposed to be a standby to the national grid. But unfortunately, till date, the national grid is yet to reach New Marte. So, it is the same power house that is powering all our pumping machines, all our pumping stations, about three big ones and it is the same power house that is the standby. We have about nine generators in the power house. Six of them can produce 4.25 megawatts and the three others can produce 1.5 megawatts. It will surprise you, we utilised only two generators last year to cultivate 5,000 hectares. All the rest are still lying down there. If the transmission line is connected to the New Marte, we have the capacity to power the whole of the north-east.
How does the power house work?
It uses diesel and that is why it is very expensive to maintain because, on the average, you need 5,000 litres per day to run them and, therefore, is not cost effective for now. But we are looking for an alternative source of power.
You mean the machines can be changed to use another method to generate electricity?
Yes, I think there is a provision for black oil instead of diesel and we are looking at that.
We heard of hybrid wheat. Are you aware of it?
Yes, I think in collaboration with the Lake Chard Research Institute, we looked at two varieties of wheat- the Atila Gan Atila and the Seri M-82. Surprisingly, the Atila did very well because we got a yield of about four tonnes per hectare which is unprecedented. In the past, we were getting about 1.5 tonnes per hectare and if you do very well, you get 2.5 tonnes per hectare. The Atila Atila did very well last year (2013) and the research institute is working further on that. As such, in the next few years, we would improve on these varieties so that we would have maximum output within a small area of cultivation. That way, we would be able to cultivate much of the land that we have at the moment. You are aware that the South-Chad Irrigation Project (SCIP) was conceived in 1973 and we have the capacity to cultivate about 67,000 hectares of land. Till now, we couldn’t go beyond 10,000 hectares. We are thinking that by the time we overcome this issue of insurgency, we would commence the cultivation of about 10,000 hectares and beyond.
When you look at the year, the SCIP and the idea of cultivating 67,000 hectares were conceived and the emergence of the insurgency around 2012, there were many peaceful years in between. What were you doing?
First of all, the project commenced in 1979 and by 1983-84, we cultivated up to 9,180 hectares- just close to 10,000 hectares. But something happened within that period and that was the receding of the Lake Chad and the big factor was climate change. The Lake Chad that was supposed to be the source of water for cultivation in the SCIP dried up and so there was no water to cultivate. Within that period, not much attention was given to the project and, therefore, all the structures for the project got silted up. And so, going back to the project means you have to start all over again and for about 15 to 16 years, nothing serious was going on. When we came in around 2006, we introduced the concept of Triple R which I earlier mentioned. We started rehabilitating the structures and the machineries, we were buying new machineries and so on and so forth. And that was how we cultivated 5,000 hectares last year after about 20 years of inactivity.  If we had continued, by this year, we would be targeting between 7,000 to 10,000 hectares of land and, probably, after next year, we should be in serious business. Of course, the Lake Chad is gradually coming back because up till this time of the year, we are seeing some  water in the Chad Basin and this is because of the efforts we made upstream of the Kumadugu—Yobe Basin. We made a lot of interventions in collaborations with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and the Hadejia-Jama’are River Basin. The Hadeja-Jama’are-Kumadugu-Yobe Trust Fund is also part of the success story. We really made some improvement in the water flow into the Lake Chad easily and quickly.

What is the volume of water now in the Lake Chad and what are the factors responsible for its receding?
In 1963 when the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) commenced the feasibility studies of the South- Chad Irrigation Project, the water in the Lake Chad was in the range of 25,000 square kilometres. But climate change, low rainfalls, high temperatures, manmade activities such as damming upstream among others, contributed to the receding of the Lake Chad and apparently, we ended up having just about 2,000 square kilometres as at now.
When the hybrid wheat was developed, did you make any effort in introducing it to local farmers?
Of course, the Chad Basin is a development authority. We don’t go into cultivation, we do everything together with the farmers. We, therefore, practice what we call Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM). The only thing we do is to prepare the land for the farmers, provide water into the farms and we sub-divide the farms into small-small segments. The farmer within the Chad Basin is as well informed as any other stakeholder because he works closely with the extension workers. They are fully aware of any innovation and if you go to their individual farms now, you will discover that they are using the improved variety of the Atila-Atila.
How do you strike a balance between the investment you made in the farms and the contribution of farmers?
The whole idea about PIM is to build the capacity of the farmer. Now, depending on the input we, as government, put into the farm, we harvest whatever that was cultivated by the farmers and there is a sharing formula at the end of the season, depending on the input. It is either 60 percent for the farmer and 40 percent for the government or 70 percent for the farmer and 30 percent for the government. Last year, it was 50-50 percent because we gave them fertilizer, seeds, water to the farms and we prepared the land. The only thing the farmers did was to go and pick weeds in the farms.
What are the differences between farming wheat and rice?
I think the difference is on what you actually wanted to achieve. Rice requires too much water. Wheat is within the winter season-just between November and March and the water requirement is not much. So, depending on the input you put, you can end up getting higher yield for whichever that you chose to cultivate. But I think if you go to the market, the prices for wheat is a little bit higher than that of rice. But I believe whichever one you decide to cultivate, you can make a living out of it.
How are farmers in the Chad Basin handling storage issue?
The SCIP Project was actually prepared for the whole value chain of agriculture, starting from production, processing, storage and marketing. These are the four aspects. If you go to our project site, you will see big storage facilities where you can keep your rice or wheat for as long as you want.
What about marketing?
We try to open up the market for the farmers. If you pay attention to the routes from Ngala to Kano, you will discover that many trucks, loaded with the produce are moving. Most of the rice and wheat produced in the Basin are sent to Kano.
Why is it that you don’t have the processing capacity here in Maiduguri or the fields in New Marte?
Unfortunately, when the Lake Chad receded, the whole project went down and the concept of processing was not actually developed at the time. But, last year, the Governor of Borno State Alhaji Kashim Shettima made a lot of efforts in procuring rice processing mills and probably, in the next few years, we should be able to process what we produce.
You earlier mentioned the collaboration between the Cha Basin and the Borno State Government, can you please throw more light on that?
We collaborated with the Borno State Government with three things in mind. One, we want to create jobs. Two, we want to reduce poverty and, thirdly, we want to improve on the food security in the region. As such, we have developed the project on the basis of our Triple Rs programme. We know that we have the capacity to open all our water canals, we have the capacity to pump water from our power house and we also have sufficient machinery such as heavy duty machineries, combined harvesters and so on. The Borno State Government took some interest and said they wanted to partner with us. All we did was to tell the state government our requirement for diesel, fertilizer and our requirements for tractors for land preparation. And the Borno State Government brought in all those items and that was the kind of partnership that we had and it worked very well.
How did you manage to draw the water to New Marte going by the fact that the Lake Chad has receded?
The recharging of the Lake Chad is a bigger thing and we are looking at it at the regional level. The project is called Inter Basin Water Transfer- which aims at transferring water from the Congo Republic to recharge the Lake Chad through the Central African Republic. This is a big project and is being handled by the Lake Chad Basin Commission that is based in Ndjamena. Sometime in 2010, consultants were employed to carry out the feasibility studies and they have submitted their report and they have indicated that it is possible to transfer water from the Congo Republic to recharge the Lake Chad and this would cost the six countries about $14.5 billion. But on a local level, as I said, we improved the flow of the Kumadugu -Yobe Basin which is within Nigeria and it starts from Jos and ends in the Lake Chad. There were a lot of interventions in the clearing of typher grasses and so on, which opened up the channels. This is the water that we utilized to carry out the irrigation last year.
What was the reaction of farmers around the Chad Basin when you encouraged them to go into wheat production?
Wheat is very marketable and at the moment, we are still under producing it in Nigeria. You will recall that last year, the cost of importation of wheat was about N635 billion, per annum, which means we are not producing it here. Otherwise, there is no point we engage in importing that much on yearly basis.  The market is there in Nigeria because if you go to the major stakeholders like the Nigerian Flour Mills, for example, they import wheat from the United States, Brazil and so on. So, if we can produce, there would be no need for importation. Even the little we are producing here is being consumed locally. There is hardly a home that doesn’t eat wheat now because of cases of diabetes all over the country. Wheat can be used for flour, Semovita, noodles and many others. Farmers that are producing wheat are doing very well. I remember a time when I met a small farmer who told me that he got about N400, 000 from the sales of wheat he produced in his farm.