Kebbi onion farmers decry inadequate support

Some of the farmers who spoke with Daily Trust in Aliero, a major onion producing community in the state,said most of them have relocated from the area to neighbouring Sokoto State where they can access standard irrigation facilities using the famous Goronyo Dam coupled with favourable weather and climatic conditions for the production of onions.Alhaji […]

Some of the farmers who spoke with Daily Trust in Aliero, a major onion producing community in the state,said most of them have relocated from the area to neighbouring Sokoto State where they can access standard irrigation facilities using the famous Goronyo Dam coupled with favourable weather and climatic conditions for the production of onions.
Alhaji Kanin Waziri, a 55-year-old onion farmer and dealer with 40 years experience in onion farming said he currently plants millet in most parts of his vast farmland where he produces between 1,650 and 1,800 bags of onions in the dry season. He said in the wet season, his only option is to rely on supply of onions from Sokoto to meet up supplies to his customers across the country.
“I have six farms that I grow onions through irrigation but during the rainy season, I grow millet in those same farms and I have never enjoyed any assistant from government. As a dealer, too, I rely on such farmers to meet up supply of the onions to my customers in Lagos, Onitsha and many other parts of the South South, South West and south eastern parts of the country,” he said.
Waziri enumerated his problems to include lack of enough fertiliser, water and water pumps for irrigation farming, adding, “sometimes politicians and people in government assist us with water pumps especially around the period of electioneering campaigns. But they abandon us after the elections.
“Most of our tube wells are dry and have become death traps because their diameter has been washed open by rain. The mini-dam constructed by government long time ago could not even serve farms near it. Lack of proper storage facilities is also a major concern in our business. This has contributed to sharp drop in the cost of a bag of onions from N40,000 to as low as N2,000 in the dry season,” he said.
An agricultural expert in Jega, Alhaji Mustapha Yahaya Jega, said the major issue is lack of sufficient empowerment programme for farmers in the state. He said government should ensure that loan facilities are targeted towards empowering peasant farmers especially in the area of production of onions that has become one of the major cash crops in the state.
He said such loan facilities will be helpful to the farmers who are currently relying on loans from locals who rip the farmers off of their produce after harvest,including the onion farmers.
He said another major concern is in the area of pepper farming which price dropped from N5,000 to as low as N1,500 per bag in the rainy season because the farmers are not sufficiently empowered to apply the local Sun drying preservation method.
“Even the onions that we are talking about, very few farmers have realised that all-round season production can be applied and would fetch them more yield and money than converting the farms for millet alone during the dry season. People have discovered that onion seedling from Zaria can also suit the Aliero/Jega lands instead of the normal seedlings applied in the dry season,” he said.
Jega lamented that onion farmers sent to Morocco from the state to learn advanced methods of preserving onions returned to the state without any practical knowledge on they went to learn as they could not demonstrate any new technique of preservation.
The Vice Chancellor, Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Aliero (KSUSTA), Professor Abdullahi Abdu Zuru, in an interview with Daily Trust on the contribution of the university to improving agriculture, especially onion farming, said it is not by accident that the university took off with courses on science and agriculture.
He said the government has taken cognizance of the fact that the state is an agrarian one and agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, adding that the major thing the university did was to ensure that they have put in place facilities that will help the institution to produce the right type of graduates that are suitable for the state’s needs.
“So, agriculture is an area we are emphasising because even the first locality where the university is sited is Aliero and Aliero is well identified with onions. One of the areas we are looking closely at is how do we preserve these because what is happening is that during the main harvest period of onion, we have it in large quantity and you will find out that they perish and the price comes down so low. But after a short period, when the harvest period is over, they will experience a lot of wastage because they cannot preserve it.
“Except for those who do irrigation process to produce some of the onions and get them sold immediately, others get spoilt when they experience glut. So, it comes and then you will see that the prices fluctuate about just N1,000 difference on a sack to as high as between N14,000 and N15,000 a sack. This wide fluctuation is evidence of lack of storage facility because you cannot store it.
“You will discover that when there is glut, the price goes down and suddenly when it is no longer available, the price goes up. So, we are looking at ways to do the preservation both in the form of dry season onions and wet season onion so that it can be properly stored. So, this is the main area that we are working on,” he added.
Professor Zuru said the university is also looking at rice production because of the expanse of Fadama across the whole state saying, “in fact we are even trying to reach out to Dangote who has already pronounced an investment and to see how we can help in the process.
“We, as an institution are now trying to reach out to Dangote over the pronouncement he made which will also employ people to start sugarcane plantation and some are even talking about rice too.
“From there we shall extend to the area of production of electricity. When you are into sugarcane production, you can easily use the waste from the sugarcane to develop into electricity generation. In most cases where these things are done, you will find out that they generate excess electricity, beyond their own immediate need as a factory and then the adjoining communities will benefit from it.
“From what Dangote is talking about, he is saying that it is not only Kebbi State that will benefit from the electricity generation but also neighbouring states. You can see that we as a university, we have high demand for electricity which is one of the benefits we will derive from there.
“But the other derivables the company will get from us is not only the technical advice from our own lecturers that will be involved but that stream of students as they are working and also go there on industrial attachment. So, they gain experience before they graduate. So, by the time they graduate they will initially be talking about self-employment and not looking for employment,” he said.
 Kebbi State Director of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Kelvin Tekpat, recently said government is making effort to boost agriculture through irrigation and maximising of mineral resources in the country.
He said farmers in the state are digging the tube wells they are using for their irrigation farming, adding, “government only provides the farmers with water pumps. Few irrigation schemes that are supposed to use hydro flow that are located in Birnin Kebbi, Argungu, Gafara and Warra are not in good shape. I understand that the state government is looking at areas of collaboration with the African Development Bank to boost irrigation farming in the state.”