Uthman Abubakar
27 April 2008
"The National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI) was established in 1898 during the colonial administration of Alfred Maloney. Around 1915, Lord Lugard renamed it the Federal Agricultural Research Station."
How will it strike you to hear that Nigerians eat rice in deficit of two million tonnes yearly in contrast to the quantity they must produce to enable them eat enough of it? This is the fact, according to the National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI), Badegi, Niger state.
The country's oldest and foremost cereals research institute posits that Nigerians need five million tonnes of rice, the current global master of the menu, yearly to eat to qualify as eaters of enough rice according to their current 150 million populations. They now supply themselves only three million tonnes to eat. Formal export is far out of thinking.
It posits that Nigerians now need 1.5 million tonnes of sugar to eat in their various foods and beverages, which is far more than the about 800,000 tonnes used to be produced by the sugar companies in the country when they were operating.
The know-all-about-rice-and-sugar institute conducts its own researches and measures its concrete achievements and breakthroughs over the last one century on the scale of its restructured and refocused mandate, travails and constraints, successive government policies and funding.
The National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI) was established in 1898 during the colonial administration of Alfred Maloney. Around 1915, Lord Lugard renamed it the Federal Agricultural Research Station. By 1945 it metamorphosed into the Federal Department of Agricultural Research. By the enabling Act of 1975 establishing other research institutes, it became the National Cereals Research Institute by which it is known today. It was first located in Ibadan in 1898.
On establishment in 1898, the NCRI's mandate covered all the food and cash crops research in all the protectorates making up the current Nigeria. With the establishment of other research institutes over time, its mandate shrank accordingly. In 1975, when it adopted its present name, it was given the mandate to work on rice, sugarcane, maize and cowpea.
About three years later, there was reorganisation. Consequently, the mandate covered rice, sugarcane, soyabean, Benny seed and farming system research within the Middle-Belt. Of recent, two other minor crops - hungry rice (Accha) and castor were added to its mandate. Now the full mandate of the institute is the genetic improvement of the major crops, which are rice, sugarcane, soya bean, benny seed and the said minor ones, which are hungry rice and castor, apart from the farming system research within the Middle-Belt.
"In the early 1900s when we were working on virtually all crops," says Dr. Emmanuel Imolehin, speaking on the behest of the Executive Director of the institute, Dr. Anthony Adokole Ochigbo, on the over-time shrinking of the institute's mandate to six crops, "with the zoning of the country over time in the area of agricultural researches, the idea became that of having research institutes where the major crops are grown. For example, it is felt that rice is the major crop of this environment and soya bean and benny seed are the major crops of the Middle-Belt. That is what informed the shrinking of our mandate. Take, for example, the hungry rice you are talking about. It is essentially a Middle-Belt crop. So, most of our crops are the ones that are predominantly grown in the Middle-Belt.
According to Dr. Imolehin, "The idea is that you can fashion a research activity to be able to develop varieties and improve on existing ones so that we can have very high-yielding disease and pest-resistant varieties that can be used in these localities and beyond. You can see why our mandate shrank."
Rice as the main staple food of the major population is a crop that grows in virtually all the states of the federation. Niger State, where NCRI is located, is one of the major rice-producing states of the country. So, the institute feels it does not trifle with any opportunity to conduct research for better varieties as the topmost crop on its mandate list. But it takes utmost care to ensure that researches into other mandate crops for the required genetic improvement do not suffer according to its existing capacity and available resources.
The Director of Sugarcane Research of the institute is also a know-all about rice and other mandate crops as well as the researches into their genetic improvements.
"When you talk of genetic improvement of crops, if you take rice and sugarcane as examples, the idea is to come up with a lot of varieties that are much better than the existing ones. Consider, for example, sugarcane, either the chewing cane or the industrial cane. When we come up with these improved varieties, we don't stop there because we know that the varieties can not grow in vacuum. They have to grow in optimum medium. So we develop the technology that ensures that we get the maximum yield out of these varieties," he explained.
One major fact is that the production of an improved variety of any cereal crop is no guarantee for the achievement of the maximum possible yield during harvest. Even if a variety has the genetic potential to produce ten tonnes per hectare, but it is not properly utilised, the land is not properly prepared, the water supply is inadequate and diseases and pests are not managed, the farmer may not even harvest one tonne per hectare.
"So our research does not stop at developing these varieties," said the sugarcane expert, "it necessarily includes developing the technology for its production. And we don't stop at that. We research into adding value into these crops. Take the main crop, rice, for example. When it is produced we know that if it is not properly processed, the quality will be very bad. So we research into proper parboiling system, drying, milling and destining so that the rice that you are going to get out of this crop is the one that is comparable with the imported ones."
Consider the next main mandate crop of the institute, sugarcane. "We don't stop at developing varieties. We also conceptualise machines that can process these varieties, crush them and go through all the processes of getting the brown sugar out of it. So we add value to it in the sense most of the farmers can now get involved in it, improve their lot in terms of the earning they achieve from cultivating and processing it and also make this scarce commodity, like the rice and sugar, available in their environment."
NCRI does not go into commercial production of the crops. It only produces the prototypes and demonstrates them, and those interested, like the entrepreneurs, can come forth for it. Take the brown sugar as example. The institute feels it has perfected the development of the varieties that are suitable for the production of sugar and the useful technology for the production of the sugar itself. It has also been able to get a few brown sugar cottage industries, starting with Sara in Jigawa State and continuing with Kurna Mada in the FCT, Zaria in Kaduna State and Omo in Enugu State. It is preparing to commission another brown sugar cottage industry in Rivers State. It encourages relevant government ministries and other agencies to buy and commercialise these products.
NCRI recalled that it had a cordial formal relationship with the two major sugar companies in the country - Savanna and Bachita in Adamawa and Kwara States respectively, when they were operating.
"We visited them when they called upon us, that was when they had problems," said Dr. Imolehin, "and then we worked in collaboration with them to ensure that they had good varieties that were highly adapted to this ecology. You know the imported varieties, after some years, their productivity decline and they succumb to diseases and pests. We ensured that they had the appropriate variety they wanted and when they had problem with their soil sometimes, because of the use of fertiliser or any such thing, and the productivity of their plantations started declining, which had adverse effect on their overall production, they called upon us, we took samples of the soil, analysed it and advised them on what the problem was. But, unfortunately, when they were in full production, they were not producing up to five percent of the total requirement of sugar. If, as it is now, we need about 1.5 million tonnes of sugar per year, according to our current population, and it all comes through importation, then you can see the colossal sum of money spent in importing this sugar into the country."
NCRI's assumption is that if the average expanse of land available for sugar cane production in this country is about 600,000 hectares, the production per hectare is just between 50 and 100 tonnes per hectare and the conversion of sugarcane to sugar is may be about 14 tonnes to one tonne of sugar, then the total production of sugar will be more than the country's requirement.
The institute advocates that Nigeria borrows a leaf from India where, it observes, cottage industries are established at intervals of about 20 kilometres to produce sugar or process any farm produce. It wants government to establish at least a cottage industry in each local government area, and since sugarcane can grow in virtually every part of the country, with such cottage industries, production of sugar will be very close to the end users and also afford the farmers the opportunity to earn more money to improve their financial base.
The institute feels such efforts should be based on the concrete foundations of relevant enabling government policy.
"If half of what we spend in importation of sugar is spent in establishing these brown sugar cottage industries, we will be self-sufficient in due course. If the importation of sugar is banned we will not die. We will only suffer for sometime. After a while, with some sacrifice, we will pick up and we will be smiling," according to Dr. Imolehin, believing, "our economy will be better for it and we will not be supporting another country's economy at the expense of our own."
He recalled that in 1985 when rice importation was banned, it boosted massive production with all farmers dispersing into the fields to grow rice. However, when rice importation was reintroduced it dampened the morale of the farmers and production went down to the extent that everybody now depends on imported rice. He said the country now needs five million tonnes of rice to feed its population. It now produces only three million tonnes. This shows a deficit of two million tonnes.
Research breakthroughs? NCRI believes inspite of its travails and constraints-laden 109 years it has registered some.
"On sugarcane, six industrial varieties cane have been developed and released to sugarcane industries and local sugar processors. Apart from these varieties, we have developed appropriate processing techniques for brown sugar production. These are used by the existing brown sugar cottage industries in all the states where such industries operate," the director of sugarcane research announced.
Dr. Imolehin announced rice research breakthroughs: "We have also developed 57 improved rice varieties, both lowland and upland, used throughout the country. The institute has also developed improved rice processing technologies currently used by multinationals like AGIP and local entrepreneurs. It has also developed eight improved soya bean varieties now used by farmers across the country.
"We have also produced breeder seeds of our mandate crops to the National Seeds Service (NSS). We are the only institute with the mandate to produce new varieties of these crops, and in doing so we also produce the breeder seeds," he stated further.
The institute develops low improved sustainable production system for resource-poor farmers. About Accha and Castor, which are new and minor crops on its mandate list, the institute has taken accession throughout their production zones, tested them on the fields and settled on those varieties that are adaptable and suitable to the various ecologies in the regions.
NCRI would not want more crops to be added to its current list of mandate crops. It prefers being left alone to handle the current list efficiently well with sufficient funding to enable it make the required major impact not only on its region of coverage, but the country as a whole.
"When we say 57 varieties of rice, they are not many. In India, the release mechanism is so vast that universities can release, national projects on rice can release varieties and research institutes can also release. In India, the universities alone can release as many as our own 57 varieties," Dr. Imolehin admitted.
In Nigeria, only the institute can release varieties because it is trying to ensure people, especially the farmers, specialise in their way. Not all the 57 rice varieties are being utilised by the Nigerian farmers. When new varieties are produced, the older ones are stored in the shelves. They are, however, stored in such a way that they are not lost because "a time may come that you may need some trick or quality in that variety to produce a new variety."
The most popular rice varieties consumed in this country now are, in the lowland varieties family, Farrow 52 and Farrow 44, apart from the Farrow 37 mostly preferred in the South-Eastern states, while in the upland family people are more inclined to the Nerica. Most people now chant the names of Nerica 1 and Nerica 2 as the new rice varieties for Africa because they feel it can produce high yields with minimum input. The institute can not single out a variety most consumed by Nigerians, pot-to-table. There are a lot of factors militating against the adoption of a variety by consumers.
The most pinching problem of the institute, as is the case with all government establishments, is inadequate funding.
The institute expressed pleasure at observing, through its impact assessment team, that people use all the crop varieties it has so far developed. It says it is, however, most gladdened by the observation that the use of these varieties by the farmers improves their cash earnings and raise their economic status.
The time for the cultivation of rice depends on the different regions of the country. In the North, the rains become steady mostly between June and July. By July, the nursery is already on bed. By August it is transplanted. By November, most farmers are thinking of harvesting. Where irrigation is practiced, nothing stops the farmer from producing two crops in a year. NCRI wants Nigeria to borrow a leaf from India where the farmers rely on tube wells, not dams, to cultivate their rice farms.
"We need funds to move to all our ten outstations across the country, apart from financing its other operations," the director pleaded. "To be able to move to all these outstations we need money and vehicles. Also, for a long time there has been embargo on employment. A lot of researchers have left or retired. Fortunately, some people applied. We need to replace all those that have left. Shortage of manpower has stalled research. Fortunately, government has lifted the embargo on employment and we have advertised. We will employ very soon. Without enough manpower you can not do anything."
So the NCRI trudges on, squeezing out its mandate crop varieties from its travails and constraints over a century on the scale of Nigerian government establishments.
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