Leadership (Abuja)
Grace Azubuike
8 May 2008
interview
Abuja — The recent uproar generated as a result of government's plan to spend N80 bilion for the importation of rice has been grossly misunderstood, hence the minister of agriculture and water resources, Dr. Abba Sayyadi Ruma, in this interview with Grace Azubuike, explains the idea behind the plan as well as other pertinent issues. Excerpts:
Government has just intervened recently on the food crisis in the country by releasing N80 billion for the importation of rice and experts are condemning this action of government, saying it abandoned local producers of rice and is importing. What is your reaction, sir?
Well in the first instance, let us situate the programme in context, probably the problem we have is either lack of information, or lack of education or lack of awareness about the intention of government or the intervention of government on this issue. Let me briefly provide a highlight on government's medium and long-term plan for agriculture. May be it is in that government's short-term plan. In the medium-term government plans over the last six months to package efforts and come out with robust policy packaging solution that would rejuvenate Nigeria's agriculture, in the area of strengthening our national food security initiatives programme, in the area of production, in the area of storage, in the area of processing, in the area of market infrastructure development.
All over the world, these informs the basis of what we call the value change in agriculture development and which Nigeria cannot be an exception. From our assessment we discovered by way of giving you a graded summary of past policy initiatives on agriculture, we have tended to emphasise so much on one aspect of the value change production and which accounts for why to some extent for instance, that we have not been in the position to sufficiently guarantee to the required level, the availability of food that is required of this country, because the other aspects of the value change that should have simultaneously been pursued have to some extent been relegated to the background to the detriment of painstakingly promoting production which of course is the issue.
So what we are trying to do is to make sure that we have carried all these candidates major issues on board and in the particular areas of few items we have considered in the medium-term, in the next three, four years most fundamentally or areas of comparative advantage in production especially in the crop sector and in the livestock sub-sector and in the fisheries sub-sector those candidates are rice, wheat, cassava, tomato, sugar and to some extent maize. Government has come up with the medium-term strategy in enhancing the production of these items. For instance the re-engineered input service delivery by input service, we mean tractor we mean fertiliser, we mean improved seed variety, we mean extention service, we mean even water because in the world of climate change you cannot heavily depend on natural agriculture and which is why we engineered even our budgetary standing to focus more on dams drainage and educational infrastructure by emphasing less on underground water of borehole which has been the case before.
The government has to triple more resources to the engineering development so that you can have production round the year to supplement or further complement the rainfall advantage that you have in order to have guaranteed production in those identified production areas that I had earlier mentioned. And this is to be pursued, for instance with increased supply of fertiliser. Wwe have done so this year because for the past eight years there has never been Federal Government intervention to this maginitude. We have supplied 650,000 metric tonnes of fertilisers which is on-going, which accounts for half the total intervention in the last eight years.
We are coming on board with a tractor service scheme that would enhance Nigeria's tractor density from 30,000 of what it is today accounting for 0.2 per cent density, from 30,000 tractors over the last eight years to 27,000 tractors within just a year of intervention, but instead of contractors being financed, we have revitalised the scheme to identifying service providers which government feels will chip in equity not more than 30 per cent of the total exposure such that would provide a sweetner to whoever is expressing interest in service delivery, of course there is a guaranteed market, which is the farmers themselves that are in dire need of these services.
And the next thing of course in the input service provision re-engineering arrangement is credit guarantee, how could the farmer buy the improved seedling we are talking about, which we have subsidised to 50 per cent. We have provided in 2008 over N1billion for an out-greasing approved programme on improved seed delivery at 50 per cent subsidy to the farmer, because there is no way you can embrace production today without technology for improve seed variety, so that a small place that you have can produce more, enhanced use per hectare. By the time we come to this analysis per hectare you will see the realities of what we are talking about.
I have to take time to do this explanation because most of the information circulating is half baked.
This is the reality of medium and long-term government intervention in agriculture in the national food security programme of his Excellency, the President, Umaru Yar'Adua. That is value change re-engineering, value change strengthening in the area of production, storage, processing which we have been lacking before. In the area of storage for instance, government has given 1.68 per cent of the federation account as an agriculture development fund in addition to the budget to support and catalyse private sector participation in storage which is a very critical area.
For most of the products we have, we have clear storage challenges and processing challenges in exploiting our advantages to the fullest on those items, cassava is one. Nigeria was in a position through advocacy of mobilisation to produce last year close to 40 million metric tonnes of cassava. Cassava has 70 per cent water content. If you find a truck load of cassava for you to get something out of it, it has to be better processed, so that you can get sugar out of it, get salt out of it, and flour content out of it, either for bread making or for semovita or subsequently converting it to garri. These are issues which government cannot do alone but government should provide an enabling environment which government has provided funds for. So also is the issue of processing.
We have for instance, about 2.5million metric tonnes of padded rice now no matter the wastages probably that we are going to encounter in the course of processing, milling, we are likely going to get close to one million metric tonnes or above out of this, which will get us immediately out of the situation because you are importing about 500,000 or 600,000 metric tonnes. But what again you fail to understand is technology for processing rice. We don't have technology for processing rice, we have two companies that is two private sector processing companies, but there are others. Even the milling machines we have are for small scale and have power challenges, some also are absolute and cannot do work much faster, neither could give you the requisite quantity for instance that is now needed to meet marketing.
And government has used this fund now to generate opportunity for rice processing and we have been meeting with the ministry of commerce with a view to utilising this agriculture development fund, to immediately see to all those that are medium-term plans. And medium-term means some time beyond seven months. Anything beyond seven months or otherwise is medium-term.
Now there is also the issue of market development too. There is no way you can enhance production without an outlet where people can dispose market infrastructure. Right now in Nigeria or in any of the urban centres you can hardly buy grains, so that you can buy livestocks, or fisheries or specialised fish or a specialised modern fish market with storage facilities with allied processing and so if you want to buy fresh fish in bulk in every state capital, there is a marketing infrastructure, a specially developed market framework that guarantees market disposal for them. And which government is making effort to utilise this fund in such a way that the entire production system is catalised, through the re-engineering of the value change. I know, of course, Nigerians have the inherent ability of trying to find out what is the direction. This is the direction, this is the roadmap.
And in the long-term, we are looking at railway infrastructure, open up of extensive road networking so that agricultural produce are linked up to the market. Railway is an agro-aviation to our long-term measure of course, beyond three years.
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