Support to our farmers is far too little – AFAN

How do you intend to position AFAN as a pressure group towards making life better for Nigerian farmers, especially the small holders?The way to even look at it is where we are coming from. Many years ago when I was a student in the 60s, Nigeria knew nothing but agriculture. In fact between 1961 and […]

How do you intend to position AFAN as a pressure group towards making life better for Nigerian farmers, especially the small holders?
The way to even look at it is where we are coming from. Many years ago when I was a student in the 60s, Nigeria knew nothing but agriculture. In fact between 1961 and 1968, the foreign exchange earnings of Nigeria were all from agriculture. During that period, we exported more palm oil than Malaysia and Indonesia put together. 47% of all groundnut in the world was exported by Nigeria, even ahead of the US and Argentina. 18% of the world’s cocoa was exported from Nigeria. Today, the export of cocoa is hardly 8%. We are importing fish, rice and sugar to the tune of N11 billion annually, and that is a shameful thing. So, I want to position the All Farmers Association of Nigeria to restore that glory to agriculture. Let it be the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy.
For me, the discovery of oil and oil itself, instead of being a blessing to Nigeria is a curse.  It is the cause of so many ripples in our society today. All the things that cause problems in nation building are emanating from oil. The focus of Nigeria should turn away from oil and go to agriculture. And the only way AFAN will do it is by making a clarion call on those who chose to pursue farming to do it as a business and be more focused in doing it, thereby positively impacting so many people, including the farmers themselves, and even making others join them. And together we will change our mindset that agriculture can really take back its glory.
Are you a real farmer or a portfolio farmer and where is your farm?
I am not a briefcase farmer. My farm is in Katsina and many people know this. Even the banks tell me that the investment in my farm is in the region of N2.5 billion. And I didn’t steal anybody’s money to do it. I earned my money legitimately and veered into farming. Anybody can go and see, if you go to Katsina, ask for Kebram Farms Limited and you will see it. Those other people who are making noise, let them go and show us their farms.
Specifically, what are your plans to make a difference during your tenure as AFAN president?
First, we will have to put AFAN on its feet. The farmers should feel proud to be members. We must wake up the giant in every farmer to come forward and contribute their own quota in building Nigeria’s economy. Instead of allowing oil to dominate the economy, the farmers who know very well that before oil was discovered the mainstay of our economy was agriculture should take action.
You know we have vast land; about 84 million hectares of arable land. Everything that we are saying is doable, the opportunities are there and we have the right kind of population. The first that we will do is to be self-sufficient in food production and then we will become exporters. And that way we will build our economy. If you take the US in 1870, 70 to 80% of the population was agrarian. Now, the population of farmers is less than 2%, but they are the world’s food basket. They export food to every nation on earth. Their agriculture is the best and we all copy from it. This is possible for Nigeria. We should not in any way deceive ourselves that anything else will work for us, its agriculture.
Concerns have been raised over the years by stakeholders about the exclusion of AFAN by government from policy decisions affecting farmers across the country, how would you tackle this?  
It’s by what we do; we will show the government that we are a serious stakeholder in the economy. If we keep doing the right things and paying the right kind of attention to agriculture, government itself will appreciate our effort and involve us in decision and policy making. If we do farming just for subsistence, and we feed our families and we do not impact anything on the economy, nobody will notice us.
The Federal Government is claiming that it is supporting farmers to a large extent and creating a lot of jobs in the agricultural sector, is this the situation?  
No. the support farmers are getting is a far cry from what it should be. I have had the chance of participating in institutions that arose from the decision of Africa to agree to implement certain things. I am a champion of change in agriculture. I attended a seminar in Accra representing Nigeria and there I was exposed to the potentials of agriculture in Africa. First and foremost, if Nigeria’s budget of about N4 trillion for instance, accommodates only 10% of the amount for agriculture, imagine what it will do in Nigeria. If all our research and development institutes are properly funded and we pick and choose the seed quality, we get information on our soils, we do all the investigation, our output will increase. And therefore, our productivity as a whole will be better than it is today.
In Nigeria’s agriculture today, the yield per hectare on the average is less than 2 tonnes. In the United States, for yellow corn and in fact most of the arable crops, it is in the region of 10.8 tonnes per hectare. Good science and technology can enhance this. I will give you one simple thing, there is the bio-safety bill being sponsored by the bio-technology agency, it is yet to be passed. From what we hear, it was passed before, but the session of that assembly expired and the thing was returned. It is now to be passed afresh. If that is passed, it will enable the identification and certification of good seeds. This will enhance our productivity. Things like that, if done contiguously with funding and all that will take us much, much farther than we are today. And you know, as far as AFAN is concerned, there should not be any argument with anybody, if you are interested in doing agribusiness, you are our guest.  We don’t care about your gender, about your politics, or your religion, because agriculture itself has no borders. If we work together, we will make tomorrow better for our children and great grandchildren. That should be the great desire of all Nigerians.