North West and the quest for agricultural development

Some regional bodies met with representatives of some state governments in North West Nigeria on the need to develop agriculture. The level of participation however raised further questions about the region’s seriousness on developing the sector.   The idea was for the seven governors in the north-western states of Nigeria to meet in Kaduna to […]

Some regional bodies met with representatives of some state governments in North West Nigeria on the need to develop agriculture. The level of participation however raised further questions about the region’s seriousness on developing the sector.

 

The idea was for the seven governors in the north-western states of Nigeria to meet in Kaduna to discuss ways of improving agricultural practice in the region in order to enhance food security in the country.

The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) had made the point in an initial observation that despite agriculture’s contribution to the growth of many African countries, commensurate economic impacts are extremely low as challenges confronting the sector are many.

 “With high population growth rate (estimated about 2.6%), a key challenge is how to produce enough quality and quantity of food to feed African’s growing population.

“This is compounded by high number of small holder farmers who operate inefficiently due to lack of training opportunities, innovation and favourable social, economic and regulatory conditions,” the regional body had noted in its policy outline for the project to boost agricultural yields.

The seven North West governors, through their association, were expected to be part of this workshop, meant primarily to address these issues in their respective states in order to promote collaboration on capacity development for agricultural research and development.

Planned to run for two days, the workshop was expected to develop a matrix for partners, prioritize value chains, technologies and agribusiness pools for the activities of regional bodies.

 Among the regional bodies cooperating with the Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP) the organizers of the programme to facilitate these initiatives are the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA),  Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Bayero University, Kano and African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA) and NIRSAL,

FARA had in the bid to develop a network to support such development programmes, in the past, reached out to key African countries which it observed were willing to explore the options and in Nigeria, reached out to the governments of Jigawa and Oyo states.

The two states were said to have committed to the initiatives while other institutions in the country like the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ahmadu Bello University and Bayero University, Kano, have developed agreement instruments on the initiative.

On Wednesday, August 1, 2018, when the workshop opened in Kaduna, however, only one governor – that of Jigawa, Mohammed Abubakar Badaru – was present. Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State was represented by his commissioner for Agriculture.

The Executive Director of  FARA, Dr. Yemi Akinbamijo, said in his opening comment that it is as a result of the commitment demonstrated by Jigawa and Oyo State governments that FARA developed a capacity development initiative tagged ‘Holistic Empowerment for Livelihood Program’ (HELP).

He said: “The philosophy behind HELP is the promotion of triangular collaboration involving the private sector, universities/research centres and policy makers among African countries and their counterparts in the South-South region based on solidarity that breaks the traditional donor-recipient relationship, leading to empowerment of youth and women for improved livelihood under a win-win situation.”

 Akinbamijo further stated that HELP also offers the opportunity to exchange information on relevant agricultural technologies and innovations.

 “Already, FARA-Jigawa joint engagement with the Cuban government has yielded some positive results leading to the Afro-Cuba Partnership for Agricultural Research and Development (AcuPAD),” he said.

 Akinbamijo explained that the workshop represents the first major step in the implementation of HELP during which capacity gaps earlier identified by the Arewa Research and Development Project would be validated, new gaps identified and partnership for realising the vision of HELP mapped.

 He stressed that the gathering is expected to come up with a draft that will eventually become a country specific work programme aimed at guiding activities of all stakeholders for implementation.

The Kaduna State commissioner for Agriculture, Daniel Manzo, who represented the state governor, said though a lot needs to be done in the sector, the present government at all levels have initiated innovations to boost value chains in tomato and maize particularly in Kaduna and Kano states.

 “The gap in agricultural capacity has kept us in a circle of crippling poverty. If only our small farmers had capacity and are able to cluster themselves together, they can move the world. Even as scattered and sporadic their efforts are, they still contribute to the country’s economy,” he said.

The workshop had in attendance major stakeholders in the agricultural sector drawn from northwestern Nigeria, international partners and government.

 But it was the commitment showed by the Jigawa State government in respect to improving agricultural practice that stood out.

 The governor said the fact that in years to come oil will be exhausted, it is imperative that the northern governors start working towards developing other sectors to sustain the economy of states within the region. 

He said for the region to survive, it has to work hard on its competitiveness by developing businesses through agriculturally industrialising the states. 

 “This is our passion; this is what keeps us to see agriculture as our future. That is why we are so determined and serious about it to become competitive in the area of agriculture. So our being here or wherever you find us discussing agriculture is a duty that we believe we must do,” said the governor.  

 Badaru said Jigawa State has already provided jobs to over 145,000 in agriculture and also provided support to them in the area of rice and tomato farming, and hoped to extend same to groundnut.

“So I believe this workshop is probably meant for us because we are so in dire need of advice and help knowing our situation. So we can’t thank FARA and ARDP enough for this work. And believe me, my deputy governor will stay here to participate in all the technical sections.”

 “We need  this workshop to become competitive, we need this workshop to  learn the best practices, we need this workshop to have the synergy, we need this workshop to bring about some of the rice farmers into Jigawa State because we believe we will get all the support needed and we will support our farmers to produce competitively,” he added.

The governor substantiated the seriousness of his state towards taking practical steps to develop agriculture when he revealed that it will soon start exporting goats to Kuwaiti and other Arab countries under its goats multiplication farming programme.

 He said the state government distributed over 600 goats to 220 women in 2016 under the goats multiplication farming programme of the government.

Each of the women was given three goats and they were expected to make some returns to the government over a certain period. 

 He said 90 percent of the women who benefitted from the programme have abided by the conditions by returning three goats each to the government as interest on the goats earlier distributed to them. 

 “As soon as we have enough of these goats we will export them to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, just to mention a few. 

He also noted that Dangote rice farm has a robust out-grower scheme covering a piloted area of 8,000 hectares which, he said, involved 5,000 farmers, launched in Hago village of Kafin-Hausa Local Government Area of the state. 

 He lamented that while Jigawa State cannot be industrialised because all the industries are in Kano, and cannot be a centre of commerce because Kano is already a centre of commerce, it is also not relying on oil revenue because oil wealth will soon be history if it runs dry.

 He said for Jigawa to survive as a state, it has to work on competitiveness.

 “We have also trained over 145,000 youths across the state on handling rice planting implement, to plant and transplant. We also trained women on rice parboiling. So we have developed a lot of jobs on rice value chain. We are doing same in the tomato and groundnut sectors,” he revealed.

  This is in line with FARA’s opinion that addressing some of the agricultural challenges means there is need to promote the available human capital within the smallholder farms and make them more environmental programmes involving the triangular participation of the private sector, centres of learning and research and government agencies.

FARA had noted that, “In recent times, there has been an increase in the number of initiatives to foster cooperation in science and technology among countries of the south through the establishment of regional or international centres with a few regional economic communities recording some level of successes in science, technology and innovation.

“This has partly resulted in considerable expansion of a network of centres of excellence in Africa within the last two decades. A more recent example of such centres in Africa is the 150 million dollar World Bank initiative for establishing university-based centres of excellence designed to promote regional specialization in areas that address regional challenges, it said.”

 The convener of ARDP, Dr Usman Bugaje, a former member of the House of Representatives, who spoke at the workshop, stressed the need for states to give priority to agriculture.