Post by Trade Coach on Dec 26, 2017 18:32:10 GMT 1
When the chairman of the Nigeria Agric Business Group and Vice President of the Dangote Group of Companies Limited, Alhaji Dani Dangote made his presentation as a panelist, in one of the moderated panel discussions at the 6th EU-Nigeria Business Forum, which held recently in Lagos, he left no one in doubt as to how passionate he is about revolutionizing agriculture in the country. The billionaire businessman called on the Federal Government to embrace cluster farming if agriculture in Nigeria would succeed in becoming a commercial enterprise from its current subsistence level.
Outside the framework of the EU-Nigeria Business Forum, the call to revolutionise the country’s agriculture sector through cluster farming has gained more support. Speaking recently at a public function in Oyo State, the Chairman, WAMCO Nigeria Plc, Chief Moyo Ajekigbe called on farmers in the country to organize themselves into clusters to enable them have easy access to finance.
The world over, the idea of cluster farming has become a well-accepted norm. National programmes geared towards promoting cluster farming have been in existence in Chile, India, The Philippines, Japan, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Thailand, Argentina and Ghana, and to a large extent, proven to be successful.
Back home, the Jigawa state government is blazing the trail in institutionalizing this system to boost agricultural development in the state. Under the scheme launched in 2016, farmers across the 287 wards in the 27 local government areas of the state are grouped into clusters known as demonstration farms. Fifty hectares of farmlands are provided as clusters with 20 to 30 framers organized into cluster groups in each of the local governments. To further ensure the success of the scheme, the state government last year increased budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector to 7.4 per cent. Same year, statistics from the state government showed that 15,350 hectares were cultivated by 15,000 farmers in the state.
There are several benefits derivable from this farming practice.
Food security cannot be attained in Nigeria if cluster farming is not accorded its rightful place. According to data from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Nigeria’s food import bill stands at $5million per day. One of the benefits of cluster farming is that it makes food readily available all year round because many farmers are engaged in the production of food, made possible because the government has provided enablement for them. Hence, food importation is curbed while exports are encouraged. While this could lead to surplus produce availability in the markets, it invariably results in revenue loss by farmers. The government could forestall this through buying up of excess produce from farmers. With an increase in food production, cluster farming would encourage a functional value chain through private sector investments in the sector as raw materials are more readily available for processors like feed millers, breweries, beverage companies for processing raw foods into finished goods.
Farmers have a better and cheaper access to inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Governments and private sector investors easily deal with groups of farmers than they do with smallholder farmers. Studies have shown that farmers’ yields record a 25-30% increase when the right inputs like fertilizers are applied. Farmers in clusters also have access to better storage facilities.
As could be seen from the Jigawa initiative where 450 extension workers have been recruited for effective education and communication with the farmers groups, cluster farming provide farmers with up-to-date knowledge on new farming techniques and technology, research and government policies, and all agro-related information for better productivity through joint efforts.
Market access is key in agricultural production to reduce, if not eliminate post-harvest losses. Farmers have the opportunity of a better access to markets for their produce. This is because farming clusters are made to produce foods for which a geographic location has comparative advantage. Rural poverty is by this means tackled. In Jigawa for instance, the cluster farms are primarily engaged in the production of rice, groundnut, sesame and soya beans.
It is not out of place to state that cluster farming could help reduce the rising rate of unemployment in the country. Currently, figures from the FMARD show that only 44 percent of Nigeria’s cultivable lands are cultivated. Certainly with cluster farming, more of Nigeria’s 79 million cultivable lands would be cultivated and in doing this, more hands are needed to drive this initiative.
Certainly, the benefits accruable from cluster farming are numerous as outlined by Alhaji Dangote: “The fundamental thing is farmers are so fragmented, that is small unit farmers. There is no much we can derive from these large number of farmers unless we are going to bring their energy together…unless you bring these farmers together as a union, every effort you are going to make is going to fritter out. Because if you can bring 5000 farmers together, they could actually access these loans easily…farmers have better access to more money, more access to better inputs if they put together in one collective agric plan.”
Outside the framework of the EU-Nigeria Business Forum, the call to revolutionise the country’s agriculture sector through cluster farming has gained more support. Speaking recently at a public function in Oyo State, the Chairman, WAMCO Nigeria Plc, Chief Moyo Ajekigbe called on farmers in the country to organize themselves into clusters to enable them have easy access to finance.
The world over, the idea of cluster farming has become a well-accepted norm. National programmes geared towards promoting cluster farming have been in existence in Chile, India, The Philippines, Japan, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Thailand, Argentina and Ghana, and to a large extent, proven to be successful.
Back home, the Jigawa state government is blazing the trail in institutionalizing this system to boost agricultural development in the state. Under the scheme launched in 2016, farmers across the 287 wards in the 27 local government areas of the state are grouped into clusters known as demonstration farms. Fifty hectares of farmlands are provided as clusters with 20 to 30 framers organized into cluster groups in each of the local governments. To further ensure the success of the scheme, the state government last year increased budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector to 7.4 per cent. Same year, statistics from the state government showed that 15,350 hectares were cultivated by 15,000 farmers in the state.
There are several benefits derivable from this farming practice.
Food security cannot be attained in Nigeria if cluster farming is not accorded its rightful place. According to data from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Nigeria’s food import bill stands at $5million per day. One of the benefits of cluster farming is that it makes food readily available all year round because many farmers are engaged in the production of food, made possible because the government has provided enablement for them. Hence, food importation is curbed while exports are encouraged. While this could lead to surplus produce availability in the markets, it invariably results in revenue loss by farmers. The government could forestall this through buying up of excess produce from farmers. With an increase in food production, cluster farming would encourage a functional value chain through private sector investments in the sector as raw materials are more readily available for processors like feed millers, breweries, beverage companies for processing raw foods into finished goods.
Farmers have a better and cheaper access to inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Governments and private sector investors easily deal with groups of farmers than they do with smallholder farmers. Studies have shown that farmers’ yields record a 25-30% increase when the right inputs like fertilizers are applied. Farmers in clusters also have access to better storage facilities.
As could be seen from the Jigawa initiative where 450 extension workers have been recruited for effective education and communication with the farmers groups, cluster farming provide farmers with up-to-date knowledge on new farming techniques and technology, research and government policies, and all agro-related information for better productivity through joint efforts.
Market access is key in agricultural production to reduce, if not eliminate post-harvest losses. Farmers have the opportunity of a better access to markets for their produce. This is because farming clusters are made to produce foods for which a geographic location has comparative advantage. Rural poverty is by this means tackled. In Jigawa for instance, the cluster farms are primarily engaged in the production of rice, groundnut, sesame and soya beans.
It is not out of place to state that cluster farming could help reduce the rising rate of unemployment in the country. Currently, figures from the FMARD show that only 44 percent of Nigeria’s cultivable lands are cultivated. Certainly with cluster farming, more of Nigeria’s 79 million cultivable lands would be cultivated and in doing this, more hands are needed to drive this initiative.
Certainly, the benefits accruable from cluster farming are numerous as outlined by Alhaji Dangote: “The fundamental thing is farmers are so fragmented, that is small unit farmers. There is no much we can derive from these large number of farmers unless we are going to bring their energy together…unless you bring these farmers together as a union, every effort you are going to make is going to fritter out. Because if you can bring 5000 farmers together, they could actually access these loans easily…farmers have better access to more money, more access to better inputs if they put together in one collective agric plan.”