Agriculture
SOME agriculture sector stakeholders in the South-South region have called for an aggressive campaign against food insecurity in the region.
Responding to a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) survey in Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River, the stakeholders said that concerted efforts should be made to tackle the challenges facing massive food production.
They identified funding, poor policy implementation, high transportation cost, insecurity among others as some of the challenges facing the nation’s food sufficiency programmes.
The stakeholders urged governments in the region to give priority attention to agriculture in order to ensure food sufficiency and economic development.
According to them, the government should always come to aid of farmers in the event of fire, flood and animal inflicted-destruction to encourage them to remain in business.
The stakeholders’ suggestions are coming in the light of high cost of food, transportation, lack of agricultural investment and high exchange rate in the country.
In Rivers, Mr Godwin Akandu, the State Chairman, National Rice Producers, Processors, Millers and Marketers Association of Nigeria, explained that the hike in fuel prices was the bedrock of the increase in cost of goods and services.
According to him, when fuel price is increased, it affects transportation, production, processing and marketing.
“Agric products are transported to the markets, definitely the cost of transportation will be factored into the overall costs,” he said.
Akandu, also the Vice Chairman of Oil Palm Growers Association of Nigeria, Rivers chapter, urged the state government to ensure adequate security for farmers so that their lives, farmland and crops would be protected.
He said that it was discouraging to operate farms in an insecure environment, adding,” it is painful to see your crops destroyed by herds of cattle of stolen after toiling for several months”
“It will pay the nation better for the government to approve bills on ranching, it will help to reduce the insecurity faced by farmers, it will also tackle crop wastage.
“If herders can ranch their livestock, insecurity will be minimal. The government should also try to show concerns to farmers’ misfortune.
“When the farms are destroyed, farmers do not get support from the government, they do not have money to reinvest, the result is food crisis,” he said.
Speaking on the cost of farm inputs, Akandu said that a bag of NPK, Uriah fertiliser which was formerly N5,000, was currently being sold at between N45,000 and N50,000 per bag.
He stated that one hectare of land was estimated to consume eight bags of fertiliser, but a farmer could manage six bags which is N300,000, depending on the land texture.
“Looking at this alone, the question is, how many farmers can afford such amount of money for a hectare of land?
“Agro chemicals that were being sold at N1,500 with insecticides is now sold at about N15,000, while pre-emergence and post-emergence herbicides are sold between N8,000 and N10,000.
“Whereas a farmer needs to use about six litres per hectare, you can see how cost effective it is with the production of farm produce,” he said.
He urged government to review the land decree policy on land tenure system where lands were being owned by communities or individuals.
Akandu suggested that government should allocate to farmers some of the lands at different basin authorities in the 36 states to cultivate on year in year out.
Akandu said allocating bulldozers, tractors and graders to each of the 776 local governments areas in the country to pull down some heavy forests would help to create more arable land for farmers.
He said that the equipment could be acquired through tripartite funding by the federal, state and local governments with contributions from the state and local governments being spread over a period of time and deducted at source.
Akandu also called on government to activate government refineries in the country to reduce importation of fuel and hike in petroleum products.
“We must diversify in producing goods and services, export them to other countries, create employment and reduce insecurity in order to reduce the inflation rate in the country,’’ he said.
Also speaking the state Commissioner for Information, Mr Joseph Johnson said that the state government had a robust plan to revitalise its agricultural settlements, including Songhai Farm.
Johnson who reiterated the state government’s commitment to the development of agriculture, said that a lot was being done to boost farming and ensure massive food production in the state.
“The Songhai Farms, our banana plantation, poultry and fish farms will soon be reactivated,” he said.
Similarly in Cross River, Mr Odey Ikongha, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)’s Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprise (LIFE) project for Niger Delta called for the revamping of the refineries to cut down the of farm products transportation.
He said that the removal of subsidy on petroleum products resulted in a lot of economic challenges, especially the agriculture sector.
Ikongha noted that while developing nations like Nigeria were still grappling with the Ukraine/Russia war that reduced the import of certain produce, insecurity, especially in the North Eastern part of Nigeria was making things worse.
According to him, for Cross River, the new administration was doing its best to boost agriculture in different areas.
“Recently, the state had a stakeholders forum on cassava after which the government developed a draft policy on cassava production.
“There have also been several meetings between the governor and Oil Palm Growers Association of Nigeria on the development of oil palm in the state,” he said.
Speaking further, Ikongha said that insecurity was not a major challenge for farmers in Cross River but cost of transportation and inputs for both crop and livestock production.
He advised residents of the state to go into one form of agriculture or the other to boost food security in the state, adding that without this, Nigeria’s food crisis might deepen in 2025.
On his part, Dr Chijioke Osuji, an Agro Industry and Value Chain Expert said the present food crisis in the nation was expected as Nigeria was warned severally by experts after the massive flooding in 2022.
Osuji said the flood depleted the nation’s resources as many farmers could not move their produce from one point to the other while others lost their farms, stores and seeds for the next season.
He said it was expected that after the flood, government would have supported the farmers with massive inputs and seeds to go back to farm but nothing was done.
In Akwa Ibom, in a bid to ensure productive farming, the state government organised soil tests in each of the 31 local government areas to identify the crops that would be suitable for cultivation in each area.
The Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Offiong Offor, said that the Gov. Umo Eno-led administration had laid down plans for food sufficiency in the state.
She said that the state government would partner Blackrock Farms in Nsit Ibom LGA to scale up production.
“We are liaising with the management of Blackrock Farms to explore areas of partnership that will enable farmers to achieve massive harvests,” she said.
Offor said that the state government had signed into law, the Akwa Ibom State Bulk Purchase Agency, to ensure that staple foods were available, accessible and affordable to the most vulnerable in the state.
“We have also initiated the idea that civil servants in the state should return to the farms. So in our state, the third Friday of every month has been designated as farm days for workers.
The Commissioner said that the distribution of inputs to farmers in the state for the 2024 planting season had already been conducted.
She said that the government was conducting farmers and groups verification exercise to allow them to access agricultural interventions in their respective local government headquarters. (NAN)
4th July, 2024.
C.E.
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