–Dr Nto, director, Agribusiness Incubation Centre, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike
…Says action causing food insecurity in Nigeria
By Daniel Kanu
Dr Phillips Nto, director of Agribusiness Incubation Centre (ABIC), Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, former commissioner for Finance, former provost, Abia State College of Education Technical, Arochukwu ASCETA, and a former World, Bank consultant in this chat with Sunday Sun, speaks on how to make agriculture a seasonal activity, post-harvest mismanagement, insecurity and how the youths can tap into the agribusiness chain to create massive wealth that can make them billionaires, among other issues. Excerpt:
Is it true that it’s an aberration to talk of seasons in agriculture …?
(Cuts in) Very true. Very, very true and I am happy that you are raising this issue because there is so much ignorance in action among our farmers.
Some of us in the development economist rural economy and agriculture, feel worried when people talk about the farming season. We feel worried when people talk about how they are waiting for the first rain to fall before we start our agricultural activities. It is a thing of concern for everybody, you see, agriculture ought to be an all-season business activity, agriculture ought not be a seasonal thing when you wait for the rain. It is something, an activity that we should do throughout the year. If it is tomatoes, you ought to produce it throughout the year. If it is cassava it ought to be throughout the year. You know there are some people that can cause rain to fall, that is the rainmakers and there are people that can stop rain that is the traditional method but we have a more scientific and technological method where you can irrigate your farm, you can drill borehole near the farm, government can do borehole. Just like they say civilization started in Egypt what does that imply? it means people were taking water from the River Nile sending it to the farms to irrigate their farms. By such method they will not be depending on rainfall alone, they depended on water from the River Nile. All over the country even in the North you have rivers everywhere, in our villages we have rivers everywhere, some close to the farm, can’t we adopt that innovation to irrigate our farms? And it is unfortunate that in Nigeria even in the Southern part we always talk about rain and once the rain stops which is dry season, everybody will stop farming and wait again for the rainy season.That is what is causing the food insecurity, so for me I don’t think it is a thing to celebrate like you see some state governments, they say they are kicking off farming season, it is an aberration as I pointed out earlier as agricultural activity ought to be throughout the year. If it is a crop that you plant and it stays for two months and you start to harvest , it is expected that two months you harvest and then plant another one. If the nutrients, for instance, let me use maize, if the maize you planted exhausted the nutrients you have for maize, it is expected you change and plant cucumber, after cucumber it is still in the same land, you change the manure that the cucumber can take. What I am explaining is that farmers must know how to use the soil, what to plant, when to plant what, what manure or fertilizer to apply to the crops or plants. This way, it will ensure there is nothing like season for planting. Every season has a crop that does well during the period, so it is left for the farmer to know what to plant in such season. We need to rethink our agriculture, there is need for reorientation, for new innovative information, for education and proper mobilisation of the farmers to imbibe smart farming. If in the advanced, developed countries there is nothing like seasons, why must we create seasons for ourselves here? Governments need to do more on enlightening our farmers to know best practices. I have visited Israel and many other advanced countries of the world in the course of my study, and like in Israel you don’t even have water there, it is an arid or semi-arid country. What they do is water recycling, they plant throughout the year, they have green houses. If you go to America, Brazil, all these places I have visited their farms. They don’t talk about seasonal cropping because they know it ought to be an all-through the year activity. They just know the crops to plant at any point in time. All seasons are used for agriculture and agribusiness.
So looking at your state, Abia, how do you see the government intervention and approach to seasonal farming?
Personally, I find it difficult to discuss state governments rather I believe Federal Government policies will matter so much. When the right agriculture experts are in positions of command, taking the right decision, dishing out the right information things will change and it will trickle down to the states. I talk about the Federal Government policies because once you get it right at the federal level it spreads to states. Nigeria is almost running a unitary system so to speak, so if you get it right at the federal level, all the states will be happy. If you get insecurity right everybody will be happy. If you get our transportation right every state will be okay, if we get our energy sector right all the farmers can do their processing with ease. So most often I don’t discuss state government because if we get it right at Abuja, when I say Abuja I mean the Federal Government, if we get it right in Abuja every other states will fall in line. The states will replicate it. I think, it will be proper for journalists like you to move around the farms and ask the farmers some of the questions concerning the level of intervention by the government, they may be in a better position to answer those questions
You have talked about using irrigation or boreholes. How practicable is it for boreholes? How many boreholes can the government drill?
If you come to Umuahia, for example, virtually all the buildings in Umuahia have boreholes and is working. What is then difficult in a village where you have probably somebody farming on, let’s say, 20 plots of land putting borehole if the person is a serious farmer? Borehole is how much to drill or put in Umuahia today, less than N500,000, which means local government can do it. When I say local government, I mean the 774 local governments in Nigeria. Any of them can do borehole to sustain farming activities.
As I said concerning the River Nile, they were taking water from the Nile to the farms. Where all the farms clustered around River Nile? The answer is no. In Israel as I noted, they move water from the North where they have more access to water, they move the water to the Southern part where agricultural activities are done more.
Also in Brazil they put water in areas it is scarce and they do their agriculture activities all round the year. Why can’t we transfer those good ideas here? In fact, I feel ashamed when we talk about celebrating farming season and you see state governments flagging off farming season. This is ignorant of reality. We should stop making ourselves a laughing stock by the way we go about in our farming system. There are some crops that do better during dry season which means you now get our researchers, go to Michael Okpara University, for instance, and in other research centres, get the people that are into that, the experts, they will tell you when to plant which crops either in the rainy season or dry season. They know the crops that do well at different seasons. But one issue plaguing every part of this country today is insecurity. The farmers at this point, most of them are scared to go back to the farms. Going to the farm they will be attacked, killed, and raped. The insecurity is not only in the North, even down South here, we still have the same problem. You see herders attacking people in their farms, you see herders taking their cows to the farm while they graze on farmers crops. When I was a Commissioner for Finance, in one of the summits we had in Abuja, I advocated for ranching. That all the state governments should establish a place for ranching especially in the North and if you stay in the South you take your cows to a place, buy your land and keep the cows in check. It is not proper to take your cows to go to someone’s farm to feed the cows. You can carry the grasses to the North which is done everywhere. If you travel to developed countries, you don’t carry cows up and down you establish paddock where you buy grasses, buy their feed, keep them at a place, they even do better when you put them at a particular point, you see the cows doing better. My worry is that this issue is a political issue and it goes beyond what we see. It is not good for the health and peace of the country. This is where the government should come in and ensure that there is safety of lives and property. You cannot talk about food security or sufficiency if there is massive insecurity in the land. Government is expected to rise to this challenge of insecurity. No place, no region as I speak is safe. But I am happy that better or higher amount was allocated for the Defence Ministry, I think, close to N5 trillion was allocated in the 2025 budget. If it is well, and sincerely implemented, I think this should be a thing of the past because without handling the problem of insecurity you can’t talk about economic issue, you can’t handle our economy you can’t handle agriculture. So for you to solve our food security problem you must first of all solve insecurity problem.
Which other challenge have you observed in the agriculture sector?
Aside from the loss that we incur from our seasonal farming system here, there is also the post-harvest mismanagement losses. As I have explained in another platform, Nigeria loses not less than N14 trillion annually. When I talk about agriculture I also mean agribusiness knowing that agricultural products most of them have very long value chain. You can tap from most of them. I always emphasize on value chain because that is where we have problem in Nigeria. After harvest more than 50 per cent of what is harvested are always lost to post harvest mismanagement . People can tap from that. Report from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that over N14 trillion are wasted as a result of post harvest losses. Many people can turn millionaires and billionaires from that money. It is money that is flying in the air looking for entrepreneurs to tap from it. How do you tap from it? You must have storage facilities, preservation centres, silos where necessary, you must have good transportation network for easy movement of goods, you must have steady energy among others. I believe that youths in agriculture could immediately exploit the opportunities available in the agricultural value chain as the country currently loses a whopping N14 trillion annually due to its inability to harness surplus harvest.
As I have noted elsewhere, the next crop of millionaires and billionaires in Nigeria would be youth entrepreneurs who tap from the opportunities available in the value chain . More than N14 trillion is lost annually from post harvest mismanagement of agricultural produce and this is huge. Resourceful entrepreneurs could look at ways of setting up businesses that would preserve surplus harvest or turn them into varieties of consumables. They could also set up factories and transportation businesses .
Agribusiness offers a lot of opportunities for youths to invest in and make legitimate living instead of engaging in criminal activities. It will also be appropriate to commend the Federal Government and the African Development Bank for the ongoing agro processing zone projects across the country. But let me advice that the project should be designed and sited in areas with crop comparative advantage, unlike in the past, when silos were sited indiscriminately, resulting in abandonment .
There was this statement you put out recently where you are encouraging our youths to go back to farm, to embrace agriculture. With what we are experiencing, don’t you think the young people will not listen to anybody going back to agriculture because the enabling environment is not obviously there?
Let me take Israel again as an example. If you go to Israel, it a country that is located in a place where they are surrounded by enemies. Israel has about 410 hectares of land, but if you go to farm still in the same Israel you will be attacked by terrorists. If you follow ranking, Israel is ranked among the first 10 most terrorized country in the world and you see them still exporting food, exporting agricultural products. Our people say in an adage: if you say that there is insecurity and because of it you stay in the house, hunger will still kill you. So, it’s either you are killed by the bullet or you are killed by hunger. For me, it is for the youths to take the bull by the horns and go to farm. You can also farm around your compound, there are so many things you can farm around your compound, smart farming people can adopt that and you can still get the same yield. What you don’t confront, you are giving it permission to stay. Our youths cannot be paralyzed by fear. They must be bold enough to seek for solution because there is no problem without solution. They must hold leadership accountable, ensure they do the right thing, while also ensuring that they, the youths, are alive to their own duties and expectations from the government.