By Samuel Alonge
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Like other spheres of national life, the agricultural sector was not spared from the ongoing political contentions between the two major gladiators of ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In a recent statement, PDP’s presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, took up President Muhammadu Buhari, as he faulted a claim by the President that Nigeria had succeeded in reducing the importation of rice by as much as 90 per cent.
For Atiku, information at the public domain showed that the country was actually importing more metric tonnes of rice this year than it did last year: a possible innuendo that rice importation suddenly spiked this year for the purpose of inducing voters with the staple food item.
Carpeting the Agriculture Minister, Chief Audu Ogbeh, for “making phony claims about the nation’s steady march to food security,” Atiku, who spoke through his campaign organisation, averred that the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, during her recent visit to Nigeria, was conned into the belief that Nigeria is now self-sufficient in rice production.
. “On several occasions, the Buhari administration has bragged that their biggest achievement is reducing Nigeria’s dependence on foreign rice. Recently, President Buhari himself made this boast when he said to British Prime Minister, Theresa May, on April 16, 2018 as follows: ‘We have cut rice importation by about 90 per cent, made lots of savings of foreign exchange, and generated employment.”
Justifying his counter, Atiku said, “Recently released data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) World Markets and Trade Report, proved these claims by President Buhari and his government to be false.
“According to the World Markets and Trade Report of the USDA, which is a public document, Nigeria imported three million metric tonnes of rice in 2018, which is 400,000 metric tonnes; more than the quantity of the product imported in 2017.
“It does not end there! The report shows that there has actually been a steep drop in commercial rice production from its 2015 peak under the previous Peoples Democratic Party administration.”
Still quoting the USDA report, Atiku added, “Nigeria has consistently milled 3,780,000 metric tonnes annually-a drop from 3,941,000 metric tonnes recorded in 2015,” even as he called on the APC- led administration to be truthful to Nigerians, “rather than peddling speculations to curry the votes of the electorate in the 2019 elections.”
But the ruling APC government, in claiming landmark achievements toward a sharp drop in rice importation and the boosting of local production, may have been spurred by a progress report recently released by the Bank of Agriculture (BoA).
The agricultural development bank recently enthused that the federal government had saved about $800 million by encouraging local production of rice in the country.
The Executive Director, Finance and Risk Management of the BoA, Mr. Niyi Akenzua, at a media briefing in Lagos, commended the initiative of the government to diversify the economy with special focus on agriculture, urging Nigerians to key into the programmes, “because of their all-round benefits”.
He said the government restructured the BoA in 2016 to enable it render critical assistance to the agricultural sector, in terms of food security and increased export of agro-products, to boost the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“The Central Bank of Nigeria facilitated a N250 billion intervention fund for the BoA, which is being disbursed through the Anchor Borrower’s Programme.
“In 2017, we disbursed about N100 billion to farmers and we have also disbursed about N50 billion so far in 2018,” he stressed.
Akenzua particularly noted that rice production had increased to a level that people could ever imagine and that the government was targeting early 2019 to fully stop the importation of rice.
He said emphasis was being placed on standardising and packaging of agricultural products from Nigeria to make them acceptable to the export market.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Bola Oyedele, a representative of Crenov8 Consulting, an agricultural concern, who spoke at the forum addressed by Akenzua, observed that the United Arab Emirate (UAE) imported over 100 billion dollars worth of food in 2017 from Africa, and that it is expected to rise to about 400 billion dollars in the next eight years.
She enjoined Nigeria and other African countries to tap into the huge opportunities that exist, to export various agricultural products such as cocoa, rice, gum Arabic, palm oil, wheat, maize and others, to Dubai, the UAE buzzing capital, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
From the days of yore, however, rice has been one of the most consumed staples in Nigeria, with consumption per capita said to be at 32kg.
‘Nigeria Producing 15m Metric Tonnes’
Aside from the mechanised farming circles, rice production inNigeria is variously found at even mass production level among presumably subsistent local small-scale farmers. A report indicated that, predominantly among the northern states, rice is a major cash crop.
“In Nigeria, rice production sits at 15 million metric tonnes, counting from the last three years,” according to a top official of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture who would not want to be mentioned.
Also, the federal government, in a recent release, stated, “In the past decade, consumption (of rice) has increased by 4.7 per cent, almost four times the global consumption growth, and reached 6.4 million tonnes in 2017-accounting for c.20 per cent of Africa’s consumption.
“As at 2011, rice accounted for 10 per cent of household food spending, and 6.6 per cent of total household spending.”
It added that given the importance of rice as a staple food in Nigeria, boosting its production had been accorded high priority by the government in the past seven years, adding, “Significant progress has been recorded in rice production which peaked at 3.7 million tonnes in 2017 alone.”
The government’s stance appeared to have been complemented by the President, Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, Aminu Goronyo, who said recently, that the annual rice production in Nigeria increased from 5.5 million tonnes in 2015 to 5.8 million tonnes in 2017.
Goronyo said that in 2015, Nigerians spent not less than N1bn on rice consumption, adding that while spending had drastically reduced, consumption had increased, “because of increased local production of the commodity.”
“The consumption rate now is 7 million tonnes and the production rate has increased to 5.8 tonnes per annum,” he stressed.
The RIFAN president, however, traced the haul to the Central BanK of Nigeria (CBN) Anchor Borrower’s Programme, under which 12 million rice producers were attracted and four million hectares of FADAMA rice land ceded. (Fadama is an Hausa word that means a valley-bottom, flood plain, or a lowland around a river that floods or becomes wet when the river is high.)
How the Journey Began
When the Buhari administration came on board in 2015, one of its cardinal programmes was to diversify the economy, away from reliance on oil income, which at the period, shocked the new administration as it dropped sharply at the international market.
The administration particularly harped on boosting agriculture as a way of earning appreciable foreign income, to shore up its dipping purse. To that extent, it made moves to boost local production of rice. Apart from introducing the Borrower’s Anchor Programme in which a window of credit facilities was open to poor farmers, the government banned the importation of rice and also gave a marching order to the Nigeria Customs Service to descend on defaulters.
Following this, some private rice producers and millers sprang up in some states across the country.
The 18 Rice-producing States
As at this year, 18 states are reputed as reliable rice producers in the country. They include Kebbi, Benue, Ebonyi, Ekiti, the Federal Capital Territory, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano and Katsina.
Others are: Nasarawa, Taraba, Kogi, Zamfara, Ogun, Niger, Kwara and Sokoto.
About three years ago, Lagos State, which is Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, went into a trade partnership with Kebbi State on rice production, at a time the unit price of bags of rice soared, partly as a result of the blanket ban on imported rice.
Speaking during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to flag off the rice partnership at a forum in Lagos then, Kebbi governor, Alhaji Atiku Bagudu, said the goal of the two states was to produce 60 per cent of Nigeria’s rice needs, and replicate same in other food items.
Complementing him, his Lagos counterpart, Mr. Akinwumi Ambode, noted, “The future of Lagos State is partly tied to deliberate resolution on food security. Likewise, food production and self-sufficiency require our immediate attention at policy and strategic levels, to sustain ourselves.”
Ambode added, “Lagos is the largest consumer of food commodities in the country, by the virtue of its large population. The state has the market, with the required purchasing power. The state has an estimated consumption of over 798,000 metric tonnes of milled rice per year, which is equivalent to 15.96 million of 50 kilogramme bags with a value of N135 billion per annum.
“We have the economic prowess to produce rice locally. The era of imported rice is gone. The reality is for all of us to embrace the consumption of local food and commodities. In addition to rice, the state is presently consuming 6,000 herds of cattle daily, which may increase to 8,000 in the next five years.”
Advice
Advising the Buhari administration on ways to boost rice production nationwide and similarly enhance other farm produce, an agricultural investor, Dr. Dipo Okeyomi, said, “Government should make agriculture a compulsory subject in all public schools and also set aside inviolable lands, devoted to farming.”
“Beyond this, foreign investors should be attracted to devote their money and technology to our local agriculture and especially spiral the increase in rice production, to boost our export value,” he counselled.
Okeyomi, who has large hectares of rice plantation in communities in Ekiti and Osun states, also urged that beneficiaries of the Borrower’s Anchor Programme should be closely monitored, to ensure that the money given to them is judiciously spent.
