National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
TAYO OLANIPEKUN
The need for government to improve its investment in the agricultural sector and make farm inputs more accessible to the smallholder farmers has been emphasized. The move is also seen as a way out of famine declared in some parts of the country and to stir the economy away from its present state.
Findings by National Wire showed that with about 70 per cent contribution to local food production by the smallholder farmers, majority of who are women, access to land, credit and improved seedlings truly remains largely a limiting factor.
In a recent chat with some farmers in the country, it was gathered that difficulty in accessing single digit interest loan and insurance scheme for farmers, high cost of materials and the lack of extension services are the bane of agricultural practices for this category of farmers.
Secretary, All Farmers Association, Imo State and owner of SARJ Farms, in Egbema, Imo State, Regina Ariaga, told National Wire most of the talks about agricultural grants and loans are merely in the news.
“We enjoyed some of these a little when Akinwumi Adesina was the Agric Minister. We had some seedlings and fertilizers,” she said. Ariaga, was, however, quick to add that the much talked-about single digit interest loans to farmers are usually stuck in the banks.
“The snag is that banks are not willing to extend any loans to farmers based on the fact that the farms are not located in the city, even when such have the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O). After series of meetings taking our people away from their business, farmers usually get discouraged when no such loan is advanced to them,” she added.
According to her, most forms of assistance that farmers need to succeed are generally not there, especially when a disaster happens and farmers suffer losses, even as prices of materials needed for animal feeds are now on the high side.
“The flood of 2012, for instance, finished our farm with losses of over 3,000 point-of-lay birds and over 300 pigs. The Central Bank asked if we had insurance but because we said no, that was the end. Even the assistance that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said they were offering, we didn’t get a dime up till today,” lamented Ariaga.
Well, partial recapitalization of the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) with N15bn and a boost to agriculture lending from one to six per cent in 2015 were listed as some of the successes of the nation’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA). But in her own effort to increase capacity and expand activities on her rented farm plot, Taiwo Olaiwola said resorting to credits from microfinance banks is the only way out for her cassava and maize farming in Iseyin.
With interest rates of 35 per cent in the last raining season, Olaiwola said she and others in the northern part of Oyo State preferred the credit facility from the microfinance banks to loans from the commercial banks. The latter is often secured through a third party—usually with the aid of the local loan sharks—and with a much higher interest rate, always about 50 per cent.
The 50-year-old farmer said after series of meetings and futile efforts to secure credit from the BOA, the only way out to keep the farm going was the bank with back-breaking interest rate. “Loan from LAPO Microfinance Bank is better and easier to obtain than that of the First Bank I worked with two years ago. The interest was so high that I took N200, 000 and paid back N300, 000 for just one farming season. I didn’t make any gain from the farm that year.”
Dare Enunekwu, a middle-aged man, thought it better not to waste time seeking loans but to go it alone and brace the odds, making a good business out of farming. However, growing his Denoa Synergy Limited, located in Rivers State, to a multi-million naira farm it is today is anything but a smooth sail. In fact, he said over 60 per cent of his colleagues in the aquaculture and other forms of farming in that part of the country have closed shop.
“Prices of fish and poultry feeds have reached the roof,” he lamented. Most people can no longer afford it since most of the feeds are imported. A 15-kilogram bag of fish feed has jumped from a maximum of N5, 000 to N13, 000. Enunekwu then retorted: “If a farmer needs 10 bags or more per day, how do you want him to cope?”
But a dint of ingenuity has kept him afloat in the business. The young farmer had bought some locally fabricated machines with which he now produces feeds he sells to others who can’t afford the imported products, as well as feeds his livestock with too.
As the agroprenure admitted though, he is now in a “serious financial challenge” and does not know how he can successfully go about accessing agric loan. This coupled with the fact that the loans with their conditions can as well make “one sleep without the two eyes closed.”
Experiences of these farmers are also coming at a time Nigeria is listed by the United Nations as one of the four countries facing famine, along with Somalia, Yemen and South Sudan. It is estimated that about half a million children will be affected by hunger, owing to the terrorist attacks that have ravaged the north eastern part of the country.
The deadly Boko Haram militants have killed and maimed thousands of Nigerians as well as sent many out of their homestead, including the agrarian communities. This is as suspected herdsmen have destroyed farm crops and sacked farmers from their communities in some parts of the country as well.
Analysts believe that to improve the lots of farmers and boost food production, investment in agriculture as well as the gap between policy intention and implementation should be given more attention by the government. This really involves access to credit, market and land security needs, essentially.
Land security, for instance, has made it hard for Sesan Kusenmo to expand his farm in Ibeju-Lekki, which he believes should enable him make a kill because of the proximity to the Lagos market. A land merchant had told the young farmer a plot of land outside Epe, about 20 kilometres from his present location, would cost him N500, 000. “I was thinking of about two acres to grow vegetables outside the Lekki area for a ready market. But now two plots alone will cost me a million naira,” he told National Wire.
Speaking on the issues recently, Oxfam Country Director, Constant Tchona, noted that Nigeria is a signatory to the Malabo Declaration of 2013 which recommends that at least, 10 per cent of the national Budget should go into agriculture. He said the country only invests between 1.6 and two per cent. “This is as some men do not own land with which to farm, not to talk of women, due to some cultural practices,” said Tchona.
Confirming the Oxfam boss’ assertion is the fact that N123, 440, 807, 622 was proposed for the Ministry of Agric in the 2017 National Budget and even at that, only one part of the breakdown, allocation to the National Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), shows a direct bearing on the activities of farmers.
The situation can only be ameliorated if the proposed injection of N3tn into the BOA for capitalisation, as disclosed by the Minister of State for Agriculture, Heineken Lokpobiri, in Ogun State recently, sails through. This is also as China also said it will lend Nigeria $4.5 billion to boost local agriculture with the purchase of farming tools like tractors, bulldozers, graders and irrigation pumps, amongst others.
With a new generation of young farmers now being attracted to the agribusiness, government should continue in efforts that will truly make farming a panacea to famine and poverty. Like Ariaga and Enunekwu said in agreement, farming is not only what is decided in Abuja. “Extension Officers should also come to farms and see what farmers go through so as to advise the authority properly.”
