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9 July 2009
Abuja — The rains have stabilised in most part of the country. In these areas, farmers are already at the advanced stage of planting. The story however differ in some places and here, their seeds are literally in their calabash- they are yet to start planting. We will advise farmers in these areas to go for the early maturing variety of seeds. Before the annual battle for getting inorganic fertilizer commences, please continue to provide organic fertilizer on the land.
Year-in-year-out, we have been inundated with stories, of how colossal amount of money was spent for the procurement of inorganic fertilisers . Sadly this involves all the three tiers of government. According to these stories, the fertilisers are subsequently sold at a heavily subsidised rate, supposedly to farmers.
At any given opportunity, to asses his performance in agricultural development, the local government chairman, commissioner of agriculture or minister of agriculture, will always site the amount spent on the procurement of fertilizer as his major achievement. To him, agricultural support begins and ends with spending so much money on fertilizer procurement.
But who are the real beneficiaries of this annual ritual of fertilizer business? Certainly not the farmer, because he buys the same government fertiliser in the open market at a price he would have bought any unsubsidised fertilizer.
So, why the subsidy, if the farmer does not benefit from it? To answer this question, one needs to know the chain of activities, the major actors and the role they play in the whole system.
Top, in the list is the contract awarding party; It is here that the contracts are awarded, very juicy and normally to cronies. The "interest" of the awarding party is well taken care of. Next is the contractor: The contract is in billions and the return on investment , mostly in excess of 50%-a good deal by any standard. The goods when supplied, are shared through an allocation system where party members, churches/mosques, other favour - seeking members of community, traditional rulers etc. are the beneficiaries. Commission agents buy off the allocation paper from these army of beneficiaries, do all the paper works to get the products out, then sell to retailers.
The turn, the subsidy in fertilizer has taken, calls for serious rethink, on the usage of inorganic fertilizer by farmers and on subsidizing the fertiliser by authorities. Farmers should start to look inwards, by relying on organic manure to subsidise the inorganic fertiliser they normally procure from the open market, while government should provide subsidy in another form that will benefit the farmer directly.
Farmers should embrace the integrated form of farming, where the animals waste generated, can augment or replace the use of inorganic fertilizer. Other good sources of organic fertilizer are compost (result of the decomposition of organic materials) and heaps of garbage in our cities. Apart from the above advantage, the initiative is environment-friendly.
On the part of the government, other areas abound where if subsidised, the benefit will hit the farmer directly and in the process do away with the above-mentioned subsidy hijackers. Perhaps the government should look at right-pricing of farm produce more seriously. It does not matter to farmer, how much a bag of fertilizer cost, once his sales covers the cost and gives him a margin that can sustain his livelihood.
Various methods of right-pricing can be adopted. I will however suggest the "tried and tested" mopping up of produce at harvest, when it is cheapest. This method as currently adopted, though loosely, still stabilizes the price of maize at N7,000 through out the year. If the money expended in subsidising fertilizer is directed at this exercise, the price of a bag of maize will surely hit the roof- and that is good for us farmers.
Whoever is not happy with the high price should farm. For those citizens that their services are required else where and as a result, can not engage in farming, the government can sell its reserve to them at cost. Once the government cartel is broken, the fertilizer business will be open for private sector participation, which will in the long run bring the price down to affordable level.
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