Quality fertiliser, seeds will upscale green revolution

Agriculture is currently standing on the edge of a second green revolution. This revolution will entail fundamental shifts in how the agricultural sector utilises and implements innovative technology to improve output in a sustainable manner and address the need for greater food security globally, says PwC agribusiness report. In Nigeria, one of the biggest challenges […]

Agriculture is currently standing on the edge of a second green revolution. This revolution will entail fundamental shifts in how the agricultural sector utilises and implements innovative technology to improve output in a sustainable manner and address the need for greater food security globally, says PwC agribusiness report.
In Nigeria, one of the biggest challenges confronting farmers is the quality of the fertiliser, seeds and their availability. These two inputs determine the yields of farmers and the quality of what they produce.
Although there is no accurate statistics indicating the number of farmers in Nigeria, it is thought that 70% percent of the country’s estimated 177 million people are smallholder farmers with an average of two hectares.
The production per hectare is between 2 and 3.5 tonnes. This is far below what obtains in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa like Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa, whose farmers get between 9 and 10 tonnes per hectare.
Already, some experts are expressing fears that the new regulation, which seeks to tighten control on the distribution of Urea fertiliser across the country by security agencies, will create scarcity and encourage adulteration, which will affect the farmers’ productivity and lower their yields.
Innocent Okuku, an agronomist and head of commercial services of Notore Chemicals Plc, says that government should look at the fertiliser and seeds space critically if we must achieve food security.
“Government must reposition the fertiliser industry,” he said. “What government needs to do in the fertiliser sub-sector is to identify those people that have made significant investment in setting up responsible businesses in the space and work with them to expand the supply.”
Notore, for example, has over 80 distribution partners spread across the country, he said, adding: “We can deliver product anywhere at a uniform price to all the distributors cross the country. What government needs to do is to support such a channel. If government wants to subsidise the product, it is to work with such partners and say: OK, what can we do to make sure you get it to the people? By so doing, you are strengthening the commercial channels in making product available. Notore has over 4,000 retailers across the country and we are still adding more.”
With the government’s laudable objective to subsidise critical inputs, the agronomist worries that what government subsidies have done over the years were counter-productive, saying: “When government brings out subsidy programme, they appoint their own agro-dealers outside the distribution structure of these companies. Genuine fertiliser business people who are part of the distribution channel, once they see the structure of the subsidy programme, they jump into it and leave their regular supply channel. But government does not have enough money to subsidise all the fertilisers that farmers need.”
…The seed industry, too
If government rolls out a programme that gives the vast majority of farmers the impression that seeds should be very cheap, maybe as cheap as grains, you will find out that farmers are not going to be interested in buying seeds at the appropriate price. Therefore, investors in good quality seeds production are going to be wary of putting their product in the market.
When government sets up a subsidy programme in which people buy grains and package as seeds and then distribute, that sends a signal to the people who receive those seeds that we don’t have good quality seeds, because when they plant it, they will discover that there is nothing special in these seeds.
Some farmers have bitter experience with the seeds they received from government, which do not even germinate. If that happens every year, even if somebody is producing good quality seeds, the market is overwhelmed by poor quality product, which the government subsidy programme, in a way, unintentionally promotes.
Experts have advised that what the government needs to do is to intensify the production and distribution of good quality seeds rather than subsidise the seeds.
Again, if government supports people who produce good quality seeds with finance to expand their production, skills, and efficiently distribute the input, and if like roads and rail network are improved, the cost of seeds will drop.
It means the seeds will be available in the market and once farmers start getting better result, it is an incentive to come back and buy again. But once you create an atmosphere where people will rush-people who are supposed to provide good quality seeds will rather buy grains and put it on their channel and distribute. That way, you are sending a wrong signal to the market.
Once you keep that commercial channel supported consistently, not truncated, not bringing intervention that will distort that flow, things will grow gradually.
Government input subsidy ‘is alive’
Speaking on the news making the rounds that the federal government has stopped the payment of subsidy on fertiliser and seeds, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, in Abuja, recently, said that the federal government still subsidises prices of fertiliser and seed input.
Ogbeh said that the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) would be modified to optimally cater for the needs of Nigerian farmers.
The Minister said: “The Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) is alive, we are modifying it and we are not engaging in any policy somersault, we are going to widen it. We did not remove subsidy, if we stop subsidy, it will affect agricultural productivity. ”
Ogbeh said that the present administration would rather subsidise agricultural inputs than oil, adding that the ministry had developed a soil nutrients map which indicated the types of fertiliser suitable for our soils.
He urged farmers to ensure that they benefit from the initiative of the ministry.