There are indications that Agriculture is set for a great boost in the country in the next few years, following a partnership by the Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending with the African Development Bank and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, to use technological advancement to transform Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
The AfDB is investing $120 million over the next three years to boost productivity and transform the cultivation, production and processing of nine commodities in Africa. The commodities are cassava, rice, maize, sorghum/millet, wheat, livestock, aquaculture, high iron beans and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes.
Since Nigeria is a major producer of each of the agricultural products, the Managing Director of NIRSAL, Mr Aliyu Abdulhameed keyed his organization into the programme so that Nigerian farmers can take advantage of the AfDB funding. He met with the AfDB’s Director, Agriculture and Agro-Industry, Dr Martin Fregene and IITA’s Deputy Director-General in charge of Partnerships for Delivery, Dr Kenton Dashiell and other stakeholders recently to discuss modalities for the implementation of the new initiative.
Also present at the meeting were top officials of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, officials of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation and industry experts from various countries in Africa.
The transformation of the commodities will be achieved through the TAAT, a key platform for driving the Feed Africa strategy of the AfDB. The CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme has greatly helped in dramatically increasing rice, wheat and poultry production in the country in the last few years. In particular, it has led to a near-self sufficiency in rice production in the
country.
Abdulhameed believed that the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme of the CBN, having succeeded massively, would be better to use in partnership with the IITA and the AfDB to support the Anchor Borrrowers’ Programme to boost food production in the country.
It is expected that with the Anchor Borrowers Programme and the money that is being invested by the AfDB, importation of rice will be a thing of the past in Nigeria within the next few years as Nigeria would have by then become a net exporter of rice.
The new TAAT platform which the AfDB is introducing will give an impetus to both small scale and large scale farmers as well as industrialists who are interested in entering large scale mechanized farming for the production of any of the nine agricultural items to take advantage of the fund being provided by the AfDB.
NIRSAL MD is hopeful that the partnership would help to facilitate the adoption and delivery of effective technology to millions of Nigerian farmers in a sustainable
manner.
In this day and age when farmers across the world except in Africa are embracing technology for agricultural production and processing, time has come for farmers in this country to embrace technology to increase the quantum and quality of their agricultural products.
For the peasant farmers, they can be taught how to apply the necessary fertilizers and other input and where to get improved seedlings to buy for their farms. Time was when states used their agriculture extension officers to go around and teach farmers how to apply fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides, among other duties.
The literate and computer savvy farmers must always remember that digital technology is changing every industry away from the way we use to know it. In particular, it is changing agriculture, just as it is changing manufacturing, health, retail, banking and education. It is also providing the African entrepreneurs with exciting opportunities for innovation and new business models. They must therefore leverage on technology and the internet to embrace technology for them to grow and remain relevant in business.
They must also understand that for any business enterprise to survive in this digital age, their agricultural enterprises must be technology driven and they must always use the internet to be in touch with the market to compare their seedlings, inputs and their products with those available elsewhere and also market their products on the internet. That way, they are likely to succeed more than their less educated
peers.
