President Goodluck Jonathan and Akinwunmi Adesina, his Agriculture Minister, are confident a new N50 billion intervention fund launched last week will facilitate mechanised agriculture and help Nigeria achieve self-sufficiency in food production. Having started this journey so late, they should put their hands resolutely to the plough and pursue creative policies to quickly achieve a green revolution.
Nigeria is still trapped in primitive, small-holder, and hoe-and-cutlass system, which explains why agriculture is in the doldrums and the country is food-dependent. Jonathan and Adesina need to translate their enthusiasm to a single-minded determination to pursue their own plans as well as macroeconomic policies that can guarantee their success and move the country from rudimentary production methods to full farming mechanisation.
The N50 billion Jonathan ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria to provide in support of the Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprises will help to establish 1,200 private sector-run agricultural equipment leasing enterprises nationwide. The government will contribute 35 per cent to the Mechanisation Intervention Support Fund; Bank of Agriculture 35 per cent; agro-machinery vendors 10 per cent and service providers 20 per cent. These initiatives follow on the electronic-wallet and the Growth Enhancement Scheme under which the government has been providing subsidised farming inputs and mechanisation support vouchers respectively to farmers to improve and modernise farming. The planned completion of grain silos with a combined capacity of 625,000 metric tons across the country will also bring total storage capacity of the Strategic Grains Reserve to 825,000MT and help to stabilise food prices. We welcome these moves and the government’s realisation that the private sector is best placed to lead the way.
Mechanised farming is described as the deployment of machinery to mechanise agricultural production, replacing human and animal labour with man-made tools. Since mechanisation began in ancient Mesopotamia with the introduction of the plough, it has developed over the centuries to feature trucks, tractors, reapers, threshers, combine harvesters, airplanes and helicopters, computers, satellite imaging, GPS and modern storage systems. Their deployment, called green revolution, has transformed economies such as the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, South Africa and Malaysia.
In Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, it brought millions of acres of virgin land into productive use and enabled those economies to transit from food-dependency to surpluses, major exporters of food and from agrarian economies to industrial giants. In the US, the percentage of the working population employed in agriculture declined progressively from 80 per cent in 1870 to less than 2 per cent by 2008. Yet, the country is a major exporter of food and farm products as mechanisation replaced human labour and facilitated rapid industrialisation. In Canada, a mere 3 per cent of the workers feed its 30 million people and provide hefty earnings from exports.
Despite half of its land area being desert and only 20 per cent arable, Israel produces 95 per cent of its own food needs, is a world leader in agricultural technologies, while agricultural exports contribute 3.6 per cent to its Gross Domestic Product provided by only 3.7 per cent of its workforce. Mechanised farming is still work in progress in China, which is still aspiring to feed its 1.4 billion people and power its industrial revolution.
Fostering a green revolution in Nigeria is doable with the right policies. With 84 million of our 91 million hectares of land arable, a good number of rivers and tropical, savannah and Sahelian vegetation, harmonising our macroeconomic policies with agricultural programmes will facilitate food self-sufficiency, promote exports and industrialisation, reduce the huge food import bill and create millions of jobs. Adesina’s determination to reduce the $11 billion we spend annually importing wheat, rice, sugar and fish alone should be accompanied by massive investment in rural infrastructure by the 36 states and 774 local governments and backed by federal funding.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation recommends promoting private farming, developing irrigation, training manpower and providing water supply schemes in the rural areas. All tiers of government should promote private sector investment in storage facilities, food processing, marketing and research.
Success requires commitment and policy consistency. Malaysia dedicated 24 per cent of its land area exclusively to agriculture and consistently stuck to, and funded, policies that have made it the world’s major exporter of palm produce and third largest producer of rubber, while Nigeria lost her 1960s preeminence in these crops as well as in cocoa and groundnuts.
Forbes magazine noted, “Agriculture is fundamental to every country’s prosperity, security and sovereignty.” Therefore, we should emulate the US, Canada and Malaysia, where policymakers, food processors, researchers and farmers at all levels work together to promote agriculture.
Giving free rein to the private sector to lead in mechanisation will determine the success of Adesina’s initiatives. He and Jonathan should ensure that corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and operators do not hijack and plunder the mechanisation fund as they did with other previous schemes. Only genuine private operators should benefit. Both the government and the private sector should, henceforth, work closely with our 21 research institutes and the 11 river basin development authorities to utilise research findings and facilities.
The government will, above all, need to pay close, urgent attention to the macroeconomic environment and harmonise its fiscal and monetary policies, eliminate multiple taxation and sensibly direct subsidies and incentives to the agricultural sector.
