Lagos — Reports that the National Economic Council (NEC) is putting together the sum of N200 billion for on-lending to large-scale and commercial farmers to boost agriculture and ensure food security could not have come up at a better time.

The growing hunger in the land, worsened by the vanishing purchasing power of most Nigerians, and now grossly compounded by the global economic meltdown, is one threat no serious government can afford to treat with indifference. Interventions like these, therefore, are very needful as they assuage yearnings for diversifications to reduce over-dependence on oil and stabilize the economy.

Speaking on the Council's decisions after its recent meeting chaired by the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, Central Bank Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, said: "We have put together a special fund of N200 billion...for lending to commercial farmers, large-scale farms that will actually help us to meet the demands of the food requirements of the economy." According to the CBN Governor, food crises in the country currently stood at "about 20 per cent as at the last count [and so] agriculture holds the key for Nigeria to mitigate the effects of the global crisis both in terms of employment generation as well as in the area of food crises and food security. The agricultural sector is now run by peasant farmers. But for us to get to the (required) level, we will really need large-scale farms. And that is what this N200 billion will be targeted at."

We must hasten to recall that this is, by no means, a novel scheme. The Obasanjo regime had equally come up with a similar arrangement which also raised a lot of hopes and expectations, but at the end of the day, no one could point to any visible improvement such an otherwise ambitious project was able to register on the lives of the citizenry. The NEC must, therefore, ensure that it carefully identifies those factors that may have undermined such previous attempts, and do all within its powers to avoid them this time around.

It should also rethink its decision to target large-scale, commercial farmers, else it might lay itself open to accusations of prosecuting class and political patronage. Already, fears are being quietly expressed that this present move may not have been wholly inspired by any genuine desire to stimulate agriculture. Indeed, how many large-scale farmers do we even have in this country? What is the percentage of their contribution to total food production? What is the guarantee that when this N200 billion is shared out to them, a significant improvement will occur in food production? Besides, as the owners of these farms are mostly very influential members of the nation's business and political elite, is there any assurance that capacity exists to enforce repayment?

What will most likely win greater sympathy for this scheme will be to make peasant farmers the target of the programme. This category of farmers is responsible for about 98% of farming going on in the country, and so, a remarkable difference in food production would be recorded if they are well empowered to perform beyond their present capacity. Access to lands, equipment and long-term credits should be granted to them. Whereas this fund is too small to record the targeted impact when ploughed into large-scale, commercial farms, the peasant farmers require comparably very little funds to operate and their combined output can go a long way to produce significant change. So through micro-credit finance outfits, this N200 billion could be loaned to them, to strengthen their hands and maximize their output for the benefit of all.

To allay fears already being expressed, the management of this fund must endeavour to satisfy every requirement of transparency and fairness. Government must begin to take peasant farmers seriously and recognize them as essential counterparts in its efforts to ensure food security. They must be lifted up, helped to access long-term loans and made to become aware of how their contributions to national development are viewed with seriousness by government.

Why is nobody talking about reviving the development corporations and marketing boards that drove the Nigerian economy in the sixties? In the face of dwindling oil revenue, having again those cocoa plantations in the West, oil palm and rubber farms in the East and South-South, and the groundnuts and cotton plantations in the North may be what Nigeria requires now to power its economy. These ventures could be revived and handed over to corporations to manage, while government provides effective monitoring. Let's exploit fully the rich potential around us to make our country great again.