The establishment of a N50 billion intervention fund for mechanizing agriculture represents another strategic step by the government of Goodluck Jonathan to increase domestic agricultural production and cut down on the nation’s food imports. Government announced last week the approval of the intervention fund to be set up by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The fund is to be applied to set up 1,200 agricultural equipment hiring enterprises across the nation, which will be run through a public-private sector partnership. The programme will involve manufacturers of tractors and agricultural machinery, service providers, financial institutions and government. The operation is expected to provide farmers at all levels access to the use of modern agricultural equipment.
This is yet another positive response by government to the situation on hand in the agricultural sector. It could only have come from a deep understanding of the major problem of the agricultural practice in the country – which is dependence on crude technology that are hardly found anywhere else in the whole world. It is sadly true that the small holder farmers that account for 80% of our agricultural production still depend on the simplest farm implements of hoe and cutlass with which agricultural activity began in ancient times.
For so long, we have been voting money into the agricultural sector to buy fertilizers, improve seedlings and build storage facilities but ignoring the need to improve farming technology for general application. The present gesture appears to go a long way to match action with words in respect of government’s promise to transform the agricultural business in Nigeria.
For the intended objective of this programme to be attained however, a lot more work needs to be done in order to ensure that it is well adapted to the socio-cultural conditions of our agricultural community. In order to ensure effective implementation, the type of agricultural equipment to be made available for hire at this stage should be determined by the small-holder nature of engagement as well as the land tenure system, which are the crucial facts of Nigerian agriculture.
Mechanizing agriculture in our present setting will expectedly run into major challenges of lack of access roads to small unit farms scattered in different places and therefore uneconomical use of modern equipment meant for large scale operations. This requires that mechanizing agriculture in Nigeria at this stage should follow a different approach. It is easier to distribute fertilizers and seedlings than to take large scale technology to small-scale farms.
Government neglect of agriculture has happened for several decades and an overnight transformation isn’t going to be possible. A step by step approach is required for minimum infrastructures needed for the transformation to be provided and the scale of operation per farmer increased appreciably.
The first step should be to develop farming technology that is suitable for small-scale application that simply replaces the hoe and the cutlass. What we need at this stage are simple, hand-held machines in the form of lawn mowers that will take over the functions of land clearing, tilling and weeding, which are presently done manually. In this way, we will be adapting technology to suit our culture and environment.
Small-scale farmers that account for the bulk of agricultural production operate small farms in different places where they have access to land. These are mostly remote places without access roads. The equipment hiring service isn’t going to make much economic sense in this situation to both farmers and service providers.
We believe that improving farm technology will raise agricultural production significantly in line with government’s objective of ensuring self-sufficiency in food production. The best form of technology is that which is adapted to the socio-cultural ethos of the farming community.
