Jimoh Babatunde

The Niger State Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Aminu Yusuf, in this interview with Jimoh Babatunde talks on the efforts of the state government to position agriculture as a leading economic activity.  Here is an excerpt.

•Alh. Aminu Yusuff

On the policies put in place to drive agriculture
The main policy thrust is to empower the small holder farmer to address the issue of economic regeneration of the state through agriculture with the small farmers as the focal point. To enable him to see fruition in the agricultural activities rather than see agricultural activities as  drudgery, or as a basic hand to mouth sustenance and an activity that should be only a last resort.

That is the policy thrust and to ensure also that through the small holder farmer there is sufficient production to provide food security in te state, to provide cash crops that will allow the farmers to enjoy better living condition, better living standard and encourage the earning of foreign exchange by the farmers and those that will be engage in the marketing of their products.

Above all, also to attract primary industries that will rely on these produce like rice mills, and processors of agriculture produce.
On the issues of land for small holder farmers.

I think in Niger state there is no problem for access to land by the small holder farmers, niger state has the largest land mark in Nigeria and about three quarters of this land is arable. When you consider the population, you find that the issue of land is not an issue, in fact the challenge is for commercial agriculture when farmers with interest in commercial agriculture want to acquire land in the state, government has made it a policy to facilitate, but we face challenges here and there in trying to relocate our small farmers from small holdings into another location to pave way for the commercial farmers.
As far as the small farmers are concern, issue of their land holding is not a problem. They have traditional land holding which I think for now is enough for the farmers.

On provision of equipment for small farmers For the first time in a very long period, Niger state government under the leadership of Dr. Muazu, has established tractor hiring schemes in the 25 local government areas of the state. The tractor hiring scheme that used to exist in the state some two decades ago had almost died when the government came in and the first thing the government did was to reestablish the state tractor hiring scheme.
Together with what we have in the 25 local governments have provided an avenue for mechanization of agriculture to reach the grass root.

You can see the deliberate act of government to deploy the tractors across the state, so that they can be accessed by farmers all over the state and the farmers have been taking advantage of this and we are not surprised that in the last two years there have been increased in harvest by farmers in the state.
Surveys by our planners and the statistics department have clearly revealed this, and our extension workers on the field have also reported favourable out come.

In addition to the mechanization, we have also consistently provided farm inputs particularly fertilizers. If you want to ensure profitable agriculture that the farmers will see the fruits of its labour, you must ensure the use of fertilizer.

In this regards, the government has spent a lot of money over the last three years in providing heavily subsidized fertilizers to the farmers. I will give an example, where some states in the north are providing about three to four tractors to their farmers per local government, in niger state, this year alone we distributed about twenty tractors per local government.

The state government has devised a structure that ensures distributions of fertilizers to the farmers is done through the community.  The community has what we call ward development committees  and a committee has been set up in each local government   by the government through a process  that make sure people who live in the community are members as they know the farmers and their people as well as their requirement. These people will be accountable to their people to ensure that whatever is allocated to the farmers get to them.

This is a departure from past practice where allocations are sent as a bulk to local government headquarters and through their administrative which in most cases will not allow the fertilizers get to the farmers. In this particular case, the fertilizers are handed down to the farmers through the committee at their local environment.

The farmers’ representatives are asked to be part of the distribution plan to ensure that the fertilizer reach them. And we are satisfied that through this structure, through this process the fertilizers have been reaching the farmers.

On the fertilizer reaching the farmers at the right time
Here I will say we are fortunate, take this year for example. I think we are one of the very few state that flagged off the sales of fertilizers to our farmers way back in April. And by May-June all the allocations have reached the farmers.  I am aware some states are still trying to collect their allocation from the federal government and this is the end of the farming season. For those states, I think they will be stocking for dry season farming   or for next year.

But for us as a deliberate plan, the government ensures that we have enough stock that went to provide for the strategic plan that ensures we take off the distribution at the right time, we recognised the importance of time limits in inputs distribution.

On provision of seedlings
The state government has not been direct distribution of seedlings but  through our extension workers we have a mass enlightenment program   for our farmers on the kind of seedlings they should use and the type of seedlings distributors they should patronize as well as the method of planting, the timing of planting and also method of tending.

As a result of this we have added value in terms of the farmers getting the right inputs and the right method.
There is room for improvement, because we have challenges in terms of capacity, in terms of numbers of extensions workers. We don’t have enough extension of workers now, but we are making efforts to increase extension workers to achieving the maximum results over time.

The plan is that in the next two years we will double our extension workers from 1500 to about 3000 and on and on so that we continue to improve on the ratio until we are satisfied that every farmer that needs attention gets it.

On what they are doing to curtail post harvest lost
You are right, when you encourage production, you should also look into the issue of marketing, because if you have desired bumper harvest, you are faced with the disposal of the commodity.

The challenge comes to the farmers in two folds. One is that the farmers are faced with glut and middle men that are ready to exploit the situation and give them un economic prices and that will discourage them from next week planting.

The other challenge is that they have problems of even storage. On both challenges, what the government has tried to do is that in the middle of the harvest season, we embark on limited purchase of grains to stock government whare houses under the government buffer stock program, so that with that we will be aiding the farmers in buying from them.

We also try to be part of the Abuja commodity exchange, we are making efforts to see that we have an organised system that will be sustainable under private sector initiative to link our farmers  to the national market for agricultural products under that platform in a way that the farmers’ price is assured even before they produce.

We are also addressing the issue of export, we have gone far in trying to put all the necessary requirements that will enable us to export the yam in the nearest future. If the local market is saturated, we will have the opportunity of carrying our excess stock to the foreign market.
In fact, our farmers will be encouraged to face the foreign market because of the potentials for higher revenue and foreign exchange, knowing very well that we will be able to meet our local needs at any time.

On rice production in Niger state
You are right that niger state has the capacity of meeting the country’s need on rice production. Indeed, we have been adjudged as the largest rice producer in the country over the last two three years and the government has been making efforts to consolidate on this position.
Now, what is the government doing to ensure that we make maximal advantage of this? . Government is working with the federal government to ensure that we have the required processing capacity.

Recently, we have received the support of NIFRI for establishment of a rice processing plants in Bida and also there are two giant rice mills that are coming up with the collaboration with the federal government to be located in the rice processing zone.

I believe with these efforts we will be able to process to a fine finish that will be able to compete more or less with the imported ones, because the issue is quality.

If you are able to achieve competitive quality, with the cost of producing locally, you will be able to cut off all the freight charges and transportation cost for importing from abroad and be able to compete with the foreign imported rice.