"The shift in cultivation pattern may further push the country to be dependent on foreign supply of grains."
Farmers across many parts of Kaduna State are increasingly abandoning staple food crops for vegetable production due to the high costs of fertiliser and other agricultural inputs.
A former Executive Director, Institute for Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Faguji Ishiyaku, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Zaria on Tuesday that the trend posed a risk to food security.
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Mr Ishiyaku said that the cost of inputs had not reduced, adding that farmers knew from the onset that cultivating crops such as maize might not be profitable.
He said, "That was why they are now shifting to pepper, chilli, soybean and cowpea.
"The shift in cultivation pattern may further push the country to be dependent on foreign supply of grains for our food security, thereby jeopardising the economy."
The don said that if there were a low supply of grains next year, the cost of food commodities would relatively shoot up and many farmers who did not produce enough for their families would also suffer.
He urged the farmers to balance the two systems: produce veggies and other food commodities.
"It is still not late, farmers can still plant maize, sorghum, and soybean among other food commodities," he said.
Ahmed Abubakar, a farmer in Zaria, said that the cultivation pattern had changed from planting crops such as maize, sorghum and rice to cultivation of onions, chilli, pepper, okra and other vegetables.
He attributed the shift in the cultivation pattern to the crash of the prices of the crops at commodities market which was hinged on the alleged importation of grains into the country.
He said the cost of a 100kg bag of maize at the commodities market currently ranges between N38,000 and N45,000, depending on the variety.
"A 50kg bag of a Granular Diammonium Phosphate (GDAP) fertiliser is N75,000 and a 100kg bag of maize, sorghum or paddy rice cannot buy a 50kg bag of GDAP fertiliser.
"50kg bag of NPK 20:10:10 is around N40,000; NPK 15:15:15 is over N50,000; while Urea is N40,000 in addition to other production costs, such as herbicides, land preparation, among others.
"Therefore, it is observed that only 100kg of pepper or soybean can fetch you two bags of fertiliser, hence the shift from cultivating crops to vegetables," Mr Abubakar said.
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He said that the scenario posed a serious risk to the food security drive of the federal government, stressing that Nigeria needed at least eight million tons of maize while it produced 6.5 million tonnes of maize.
Mr Abubakar added that Kaduna State was one of the major producers of maize in Nigeria and the sudden shift in cultivation pattern would jeopardise the situation.
He stated that agricultural extension agents advised that farmers had up to 16 July to plant maize, while from 16 July to 31 July, farmers could transplant sorghum and rice.
Mr Abubakar appealed to the government at all levels to make subsidised fertiliser and other inputs available to the farmers towards encouraging production.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Kaduna State chapter, Nuhu Aminu, also attributed the shift to vegetable cultivation from food crops to the high costs of farming inputs.
He added that the shift in cultivation patterns had made some large-scale farmers not go into production.
Mr Aminu said: "it is not late; there is an urgent need for the peasant farmers to balance the production towards ameliorating food crises in the future."
He also lamented that neither the federal government nor the Kaduna State Government had distributed fertiliser and other inputs to the farmers in the state for the 2025 wet season farming.
