Reasons FG must change strategies on maize

Perennial shortfall hampers poultry farmers Nigeria loses N268bn to chemicals   Maize supply is apparently the country’s major problem. This is because its value chain activities are massive, such that any shortfall can trigger major industry disaster. Most of the grains produced locally are consumed in various commercial sectors.   Maize farmers said that in […]

• Perennial shortfall hampers poultry farmers

• Nigeria loses N268bn to chemicals

 

Maize supply is apparently the country’s major problem. This is because its value chain activities are massive, such that any shortfall can trigger major industry disaster. Most of the grains produced locally are consumed in various commercial sectors.  

Maize farmers said that in 2020, about 6.04 million hectares were cultivated, as against the 6.03 hectares cultivated in 2019.  

The national president of the Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN), Alhaji Abubakar Bello Funtua, said that despite this increase in land area of cultivation, maize output declined from “12.6 million tons in 2019 to 12.4 million in 2020, representing a 1.55 per cent reduction, arising from rainfall deficit (prolong dry-spell) in the South West and some parts of the South East, flooding in some parts of the North East and North West, as well as inadequate fertilizer application on maize farms.”    

Currently, the national average yield of maize has declined from 2.09 tons per hectare in 2019 to 2.05 tons per hectare in 2020, while the domestic demands continue to rise above 15million metric tons.  

This declining yield is also attributed to low level of adoption of improved seeds and drought tolerant maize varieties by millions of farmers as noted by the wet season Agricultural Performance Survey (APS) national report, 2020.  

A former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Sabo Nanono, said the country must create a ‘safety net’ for maize to achieve self-sufficiency in them.  

Alhaji Sabo said maize and rice had become what he called ‘political crops.’ adding that Nigerians were very sensitive to their prices, which attracted huge national reactions that were sometimes political.

Since 2019, farmers have been wailing over a sudden rise in the cost of inputs, which constitute about 70 per cent of feed components.  

This forced a bag of feed to rise from N2,700 to N5,600 within 12 months, and has remained so in the last 36 months.  

In addition to the cost of maize, which swelled from N140,000 to N223,000 per metric tonne, the inability of the farmers to access vaccines for their birds against avian influenza (bird flu), has further worsened their situation.. 

Mr Idowu Asenuga, a poultry farmer, calls it a major disaster for the poultry sector.

Demand gap increases poverty. 

The recent shortfall in maize production in Nigeria has pushed policymakers to search for viable alternatives, with some, like poultry farmers, calling for importation until the demand gap is closed. This call, however, did not go down well with maize farmers, who see it as “unpatriotic.” 

The president of the MAAN, Funtua, admitted that the country had a shortfall in maize supply, but attributed it to a number of factors. 

“About 50 per cent of the maize produced is used as animal feed, with the poultry industry claiming the bulk of the country’s total feed production. Nevertheless, to head-off food crisis as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) granted import waivers to four agro-processing companies to import 262,000 tons of maize to bridge the shortfall in production and augment local production,” he stated in a conference on maize organised by Bayer.

He, however, warned that even the 262,000 tons of maize imported would not cut down the price of maize produced locally, as local supply gaps are expected to persist.

The current price of maize forced many poultry farmers to shut down operations, leading to the loss of jobs and investments, which brought many farmers to their knees.

Although the federal government had approved the release of 30,000 tons of maize from the National Strategic Grain Reserve to support the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) at a subsidized rate, the weak reserve system could not sustain the needs of the farmers, something experts like Professor Victor Okoruwa, an agric-economist, warned might happen because of weak food reserve system.

Maize production faces more problems 

The general constraints of maize productivity, even before the COVID-19, which disrupted food production systems, has continued to persist, with the invasion of fall army worm, just as flooding and draught/prolonged dry spells destroyed thousands of hectares of maize and sorghum fields across the country. 

Incidents of pests and diseases on crops were reported in more than 30 states.  Cereals and legumes were generally infested with army worm, stem borers, pod borers and birds. Fall army worm was reported in all the states, with an average yield loss of 45 per cent.  

Agricultural development projects are mostly strangled, highly under-staffed and underfunded by most state governors, which left farmers without quality information for agricultural decisions.  

Inaccessibility and affordability of hybrid seeds have continued to push the country’s maize yield (2.9 tons) to far below global average of 10.5 tons per hectare  

Biotech innovations

Experts have said Africa is known as a drought-prone continent because it has recorded three out of the four global drought events in the last two decades, occasioned by climate change.  

Professor Mohammed Fagie Ishyiaku, a seed breeder and the chief executive officer of the Institute of Agricultural Research, Zaria, said the recent outbreak of the invasive fall army worm was a big threat to maize production in Africa, with an estimated annual yield loss worth USD 2.48 – 6.19billion in 12 countries, including Nigeria.  

“The fall army worm poses a significant risk to 12.5million maize farmers in Nigeria (Abubakar, 2021). An estimation of N268billion is spent annually in the purchase of insecticides used to spray maize in Nigeria.  

“TELA maize builds on gains of a decade of excellent breeding work to develop drought resistant maize varieties for African farmers, with over 120 varieties currently available to farmers, known as Drought TEGO, including two (SAMAZ 62 and SAMAZ 63) approved for Nigerian farmers in December 2020,” he said.  

The seed breeder, who spoke at the background of the current development on TELA maize project, which the institute developed, said the variety provided a form of insurance against insect pests and frequent droughts to farmers to safeguard maize production in the face of climate change.

“The efforts we are making to improve maize production in Nigeria is aimed at not only closing the around 5 million metric tons of national demand deficit for maize grains, but also to boost production to allow for export.  

“The cost benefit of our farmers is N58bn annually if 1.2 million hectares of maize farm out of the 12.5million hectares are planted with TELA maize as a result of the yield advantage alone.  

“Also, farmers will save the cost of chemical insecticides worth over N26bn annually. Other intangible benefits include healthier farmers and environment as a result of none use of harmful insecticides,” he said.

‘FG must look at mechanisation, seed delivery system’

Nigeria’s seed system needs to be properly developed like their counterparts in South Africa, Kenya and Zambia.

Most of the local varieties used by farmers lag far behind the rest of the world in terms of yield.  

Dr Abubakar said, “Harvests per hectare for major crops like maize can be as much as 80 per cent below their potential. More importantly, this yield gap is a key reason farmers in Africa are not producing enough food to sustain the continent’s rapid growing population.  

He said the desire to give African farmers a wider range of seed choices, including access to seed of highly productive crop varieties, known as hybrids, which have revolutionised food production elsewhere in the world, eventually led to the creation of the Programme for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS.  

Professor Garba Sharubutu, the executive secretary of the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), however, hopes that with the signing of the new ARCN bill, the country’s over 16 research institutes would set up structures that would increase farmers’ access to their seed technologies.

Experts said the country had no choice than to scale up mechanisation massively to get more youths into the sector.

With available machines, many youths would be willing to go to farms.