Recently, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara,
caused a buzz when he was shown visiting his expansive farm showcasing diverse
crops including animal husbandry.
The import of that media blitz of the Speaker
is that the elite clearly understands that agriculture holds the key to
sustainable development. Before Dogara’s, we are witnesses to President
Muhammadu Buhari showcasing his herd of cattle most times when he is in his
hometown of Daura. The cheering news about this is that it is not just the
elite that are given to the idea of investing in agriculture.
We have entertainers like music star, D’Banj, who has commercialized his
farm produce with the popular Koko garri, actress Halima Abubakar, veteran
actor Yinka Quadri, the ‘jaga-jaga’ crooner, Eedris Abdulkareem, film producer
and actor, Taiwo Hassan amongst a host of others. In an interview not too long
ago, D’Banj was quoted as saying: “I engage in agriculture personally to
encourage millions of African youths who look up to me as a role model. I need
to let them know that unlike the old stereotype of farming which was considered
as a form of punishment, modern farming, on the contrary, is a cool source of
employment for many graduates.
Agriculture is life and it is everything that we live for. It is the
only way forward for us in Africa. There are so many potentials in it and if we
could focus on it, the continent can actually feed the rest of the world.”
Nothing can be farther from the truth that the value chain in agriculture is
immense if properly harnessed. Let’s take the case of former journalist Rotimi
Williams who is reputed to own the second largest commercial farm rice in the
country. Williams, 35, has a farm that measures 45, 000 hectares in Nasarawa
state and employs more than 600 indigenes of the state without counting the
spiral effect of the job creation and investment in the area and beyond. As a
country that consumes more than 5 million metric tons of rice every year, with
a significant portion from imports, people like Williams are exemplars that
with the right policy by government, the country’s quest for self-sufficiency
is possible after all.
It is in
this regard that the Federal Government’s Anchor Borrowers Programme powered by
the Central Bank is a vital instrument. The significant aspect of the
intervention, which I find compelling, is seeing agriculture as a business
driven venture and not simply as a subsistence endeavour. Therefore, taking the
route of business-driven agriculture to the grassroots through the Nigeria
Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), by
deploying an innovative nation-wide field structure to support 225,000 farmers
should be applauded.
Under the Project Monitoring Reporting and Remediation Office (PMRO) with units
located in each state and the federal capital, the NIRSAL is realizing its core
mandate of making agriculture more attractive for private sector investment by
de-risking the agricultural value chain.
Speaking not too long ago on the importance of the PMRO, Managing Director/CEO
of NIRSAL, Aliyu Abdulhameed, explained, “The PMRO structure is very critical
to our operations. Agriculture is a field business. They would act as our eyes
to ensure that agricultural projects that we facilitate finance for are
executed in line with agreed terms and also serve to extend the reach of our
interventions.” Despite all of these, they are people who think that it is
still a long road to Uhuru, and rightly so.
In a country that even productive ventures are seen as tools for
political patronage, there is the urgency by these agencies to demonstrate that
they are insulated from the vagaries of politics and the shenanigans of
politicians.
Besides this, policy inconsistency is a major drawback. We have seen
government rolling back programmes only to reintroduce them either under a new
nomenclature or with slight modifications. In a situation where farmers and
investors are unsure of the policy of government for a sector that requires
medium and long term planning, then there is little hope of getting the right
people to show genuine interest and commitment.
While most Nigerians think this government has done well in boosting
agricultural entrepreneurship, the new worry centres round President Muhammadu
Buhari’s recent visit to President Donald Trump of the United States. On many
strategic fronts, the visit is a plus and reinforces the vital nature of
Nigeria in global affairs, the nagging doubt of what type of agreement was
entered into by the president persists. It is a given that with myriads of
security challenges, the country needs the security might of the U.S in tackling
the threats of Boko Haram and other existentialist groups but are we counting
the cost when there are other alternatives to our common good? In the global
agricultural and trade war, countries like Nigeria become pawns in the hands of
the major players, therefore, a lot of tact and guile is required if we are to
protect our local markets and investors.
Without a doubt, the U.S. and China are in a bitter trade war with
agricultural produce at the centre of it. It is known that owing to some
Trump’s business decisions on Chinese businesses that China is enforcing new
tax policies on American agricultural products and to absorb the outcome of the
enforcements, President Trump is looking to countries like Nigeria, Argentina
and Brazil as buffers. So to sign a deal that will see U.S. agric produce,
which by the way are heavily subsidized, flooding the Nigerian market at a time
that America is not buying our crude is to adversely undermine the potential of
the efforts of government to not only ensure food security, grow our economy
and job creation, but to seriously eat into our forex market.
What government needs to do is to create a buffer of tax exemptions for
farmers and other incentives to keep our farmers afloat while seriously
tackling the menace of armed banditry and insurgency on farming communities, as
well as properly ensure that all imported produce pay the correct tariffs and
duties.
By Mariam
Mohammed