‘Warehouse receipt system can’t help small farmers

As one of the smallholder farmers, how have the policies of this administration assisted you in enhancing production? This administration like previous administrations at least from 1999 that I can account for, is trying in the area of sales of fertilizer to smallholder farmers. The difference is while the Obasanjo’s administration and later the Yar’adua’s […]

As one of the smallholder farmers, how have the policies of this administration assisted you in enhancing production?
This administration like previous administrations at least from 1999 that I can account for, is trying in the area of sales of fertilizer to smallholder farmers. The difference is while the Obasanjo’s administration and later the Yar’adua’s administration tried to ensure that both the big time and smallholder farmers get fertilizer through government, this administration restricts the sale of its fertilizer to only smallholder farmers. That is a matter of policy. What is provocative about that policy is this; if you do not want to give the big farmers fertilizer, well and good. But stop saying that the smallholder farmers are the ones feeding the nation that is a claim that no one can justify. Expert pallet racking.
Who is feeding the nation?
Let me put it the way you can understand. I am a smallholder farmer producing rice, millet, maize and sometimes wheat on three hectares of farmland. Everything I am producing in a season is not more than what I can consume at home. But traditionally, I take some grains to the market to sell even if I will end up going back to the market within the same season to buy grains for consumption at home, sometimes at higher price than I sold mine. The big farmer next to my farm cultivates 20 hectares of rice and maize. He requires less than one quarter of what he harvests in dry season alone to feed his large family for the whole year. The remaining three quarters and everything he cultivated during the dry season farming goes to market. Who is feeding the nation? Yet you say it is that big farmer that government will not assist. Instead, someone will go to his air conditioned office and say because they are selling two bags of fertilizer to us at 25% subsidy “we have improved production”, “Oh, it is the smallholder farmer whom we are supporting that is feeding the nation” and “Farmers have never had it this good.” All these statements are far from reality. This government may have good intention to enhance agricultural production but because it is operating independent of the farmers it will never get it right. You can see that farmers have gone very far in preparing for irrigation but not a bag of fertilser has so far been released through the GES. Instead, they the PDP is distributing President Jonathan’s branded fertilizer to its members. I hope is not the GES consignment that they diverted for their campaign?
But farmers asked for guaranteed minimum price in respect of some crops and the federal government approved that. Is that not a step forward?
Of what effect is the guaranteed minimum price; at least on rice that I am producing? Agreed, government fixed guaranteed minimum price at N6,500 per 50 kilogrammes of rice; who did they appoint to come and buy the rice from the farmers if the buyers refused to buy at that amount? Before the federal government made that announcement, the Governor of Kebbi State was the first to direct the Sure-P in the state to buy up all the excess rice from farmers in the state at N6,500 per 50 kilogrammes bag. That is understandable because the farmer know where to take his rice to. Going by the federal government’s guaranteed minimum prices that started and ended up a mere public announcement, where do they want us to take our rice to if buyers insist on buying below N6,500?
You know also that this administration has provided a lot of agricultural loans to farmers and has provided funds for some transformation crops….?
(Cuts in) Please, do not let us go into fiction. How many smallholder farmers do you know that got a kobo from the so-called agricultural loan? When Sokoto State government distributed N2 billion agricultural loan to farmers in the state we all saw and felt it. The state government again distributed another N2 billion to farmers in the state, we saw it again and felt it. The total of N4 billion distributed to farmers in Sokoto State was leveraged by the state government and the two loans were at zero percent interest. I read in the newspapers that some of the beneficiaries did not even apply for the loan. Who will deny that one? When our governor (Zamfara State) opted out of the GES and bought enough fertilizer and was selling to us at N1,000 per bag and some of us were getting 20 to 50 bags, the Minister for Agriculture said it was sand and not fertilizer.
The federal government said it is planning to introduce warehousing receipt system that will link farmers to financial houses to get easy loans. How do you see that?
Warehousing receipt system is not the solution to farmers not accessing loan in this country. First, let us find out what is warehousing receipt system? It is a situation where warehouses will be built where farmers after harvest will be dumping their crops, obtain a receipt for what they saved until the price of the crop appreciates. In the interim, the farmers can use the receipt to access loan from banks and financial houses. If the banks accept my receipt in respect of the rice I lodged there, what will happen to Yakubu, the millet farmer? Which bank will be interested in millet? If Yakubu fails to pay, what will the bank do with millet or our type of wheat that the bakeries are rejecting?
The banks in Nigeria are not designed to help the smallholder farmers. I am aware that marketing officers of banks are going about asking big time farmers with investments here and there to go to them and obtain loans in millions of naira leaving the smallholder farmers at the entrance asking for only N150,000 to N250,000 unattended to just because they do not have landed property to give as collateral.
What exactly do the Nigerian farmers want from government?
I am not in a position to speak for the farmers in Nigeria, the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) is the umbrella body of all farmers and I am sure they will be willing to talk to you on that. However, let me say this as my personal view: When you proceed a few kilometers from here, you will be in Bakalori irrigation project a major rice producing area. Let the federal government collaborate with Zamfara State government and establish a commercial rice mill that can thrash, mill and bag high quality rice and lease the factory to the farmers’ association. Go to Kadawa in Kano and establish a tomato factory and do the same. Go to Benue or Kogi State and establish a fertilizer manufacturing company and lease to AFAN. Establish fresh products exporting hubs at four airports and link our associations with international markets.
Give us takeoff grants and allow us to operate for just three years and see wonders. I assure you that we shall not only payback for those investments but we shall be contributing financially to the running of government in this country like the Oromia coffee farmers of East Africa. We shall mechanise the entire farming system. Fertilizer will no more be an issue because it will be available everywhere. We shall add value to every agricultural produce through effective value chain ranging from guarantying loans for all registered farmers, easy access to fertilizer and other agricultural inputs, producing, processing, packaging, export and local marketing. Agriculture in the hands of government officials cannot move anywhere. The stagnation we have been experiencing since birth will continue till eternity.