Michael Adeshola is the Group General Manager of Arzikin Noma, an agricultural firm that partners with smallholder farmers to produce high-quality grains. In this interview with JOSEPHINE OKOJIE-OKEIYI, he spoke about Nigeria’s agriculture and how his organisation is supporting smallholder farmers to boost their yields per hectare.
Can you tell us about Arzikin Noma and its role in driving Nigeria’s food security?
Arzikin Noma is an Agribusiness company that focuses on impact by reducing the gap between production and consumption in the food industry. One of the areas where Arzikin Noma plays a critical role in ensuring food security, not just in Nigeria but in Africa, is through the empowerment of smallholder farmers.
We focus on making agriculture as rewarding as possible for them by increasing their yield, which ultimately results in increased income, and ensuring that they get the benefit of engaging in agricultural activity.
Arzikin Noma is making agriculture sustainable in Nigeria. By doing so, it becomes easy to adapt to innovations, and where there are innovations, there’s no limit to what we can do.
Your organisation has signed several MoUs to manage and finance farmers with various organisations. How is your organisation supporting farmers with finance and how many have benefitted from the support so far?
Arzikin Noma has worked with over 400,000 smallholder farmers, and one of the things we primarily do is provide access to finance via input financing, extension support, market and climate smart technology, such as weather advisory.
If you can think of the basic problems that farmers have and if you can think of that, then, of course, you can think of what Arzikin Noma does. From mechanisations to quality inputs, extension support, and to the market at the end of the day, when they’re done producing, we link them to premium markets.
And yes, we’ve signed several MOUs, both with governmental and non-governmental organisations, in a bid to help these farmers and in all of this campaign, we’ve not even scratched the surface. Our target is to reach a million farmers by 2030 and increase out impact the agricultural landscape.
What lessons have you learned in your journey of managing and supporting farmers with finance thus far?
So far in our journey of supporting farmers with finance, we have found that not every farmer actually has a money problem. Many of them have management problems. Of course, one of the major challenges people usually mention is finance.
But inadequate finances are not the only problem. Yes, finance will play a critical role, especially in infrastructure. Take, for instance, regenerative agricultural practices, one of which is ripping. Not many farming communities have the infrastructure.
So, in that stage, to provide such infrastructure, you’re going to have to make financial credits available to farmers. But, many times, we forget about the most important matters, technical know-how.
And we’ve learned through our journey that farmers need to be trained on the technical know-how to be profitable and improve their yield, efficiencies, and reduce wastes.
And without all of this, every amount invested will not bear the desired result. One of the lessons we’ve learned is to ensure that the farm is ready for the investment before we actually introduce them and this is our mantra.
We train to train and then, of course, we’ll make access to available infrastructures for these farmers to ensure that when this finance and credit comes, the farmer can maximise their land and get the best output.
How does Arzikin Noma prioritise environmental sustainability and social responsibility in its agricultural practices?
Environmental sustainability and social responsibility are everybody’s responsibility. First of all, if we do not have an environment that supports our production, then no matter what we do, the end is largely fixed.
Climate change is real. It’s not some cheap talk out there. We see how rainfall patterns have drastically changed. We have very little. And so, Arzikin Noma takes this very seriously.
We’re supporting farmers in adapting to climate change and restoring the environment by focusing on soil health. This means improving soil structure, reducing chemical fertiliser use, and boosting biodiversity – all of which make our soil richer and more fertile
It’s one of our agendas; we work with these farmers to ensure that less damage is done to the environment, even as we continue to campaign for improved propagation practices. How do we do this?
Arzikin Noma has planted over 600,000 trees in the last three years, with the aid of some of our partners, across Kaduna, Kano, Kwara and Oyo states.
We’re planting trees around farm boundaries. The foliage from this tree helps improve soil organic content, breaks the wind, and supports the environment to heal.
We’ve introduced the use of cover crops, ensuring that all year round, when fields are not in use, they have cover crops over them. We’re using Mocona seed for now, and this ensures that there is improved organic matter.
We’re also reducing soil erosion by adopting minimum tillage practices. This means we disturb the soil as little as possible, only touching the areas where we plant. This approach boosts soil diversity, supporting fauna, flora, and microorganisms, which ultimately makes the soil healthier and helps plants thrive.
These are some of the things Arzikin Noma is doing to ensure environmental sustainability and waste management. We use lots of chemicals such as Glysylphate and Licosulphur. One of the things we want to do is teach farmers how to safely dispose of all of these to ensure responsibility towards our environment and reduce the amount of pollution or emissions that this causes.
How can Nigeria boost the production of soybeans, sorghum and other grains in the country?
If you want to boost production, empower the farmers who do the production. Nigeria does not have, especially, large-scale farms for the production of cereals. We have large-scale farms for the production of palms and other cash crops.
We must empower our farmers and provide adequate infrastructure, security and access to credit and markets to boost agricultural productivity. And how do we do that? It’s by providing guaranteed access to finance, improved seeds, and inputs.
That is what we are doing at Arzikin Noma. By this, we are sure that we will be able to drive food security in Nigeria and Africa.
Sorghum and soybeans are mainly grown in the northern part of the country. Why is Arzikin Noma championing a shift in the cultivation of the grains to the southwest and what is the yield per hectare compared to these traditional regions?
Firstly, Nigeria is not always going to wait for the North to grow the cereals and basic foods that we need. While we appreciate the fact that the north provides a significant environment, the weather, the soil type, we also acknowledge that the same is present in the south, so why not explore the opportunities and, maybe one day the Southern part of Nigeria would return to feed, the Northern part of the country, but we are one nation and have an opportunity, we take it.
Well, in case you haven’t noticed, insecurity has reduced the total landmass that’s available for cultivation in the north. There are entire communities that have been sacked.
Secondly, most of the commercial offtakers for cereals and sorghum are mainly located in this southern part of Nigeria. The Nestle, the Cardbury, and Kellogg, among others. They’re all in the south and they are the largest offtakers. This adds to high production costs, since they have to be transported from the North to the South, where the market is.
We are exploring the possibilities of producing all of these staples- cereals and legumes down south, and so far, it is something amazing. We hope to continue collaborating with farmers in the south to see how we can increase and grow these crops on a commercial scale.
Inadequate access to finance has been a major challenge in Nigeria’s agriculture and across Africa. How can this be addressed?
I’ll say through Private-public partnerships. The government needs to create policies that allow farmers to use their landed properties as collateral for loans to provide capital for their farming businesses.
Secondly, we need private collaboration. Companies like Arzikin Noma can pool resources, expertise, and networks together to boost food production nationwide. More private sector involvement means more innovative solutions, investments, and impact.
We need policies that guarantee banks will lend directly to smallholder farmers. Many of them are disenfranchised; they are not even banked, and they don’t have access to financial services. This is where organisations like ours come in.
By registering our farmers and giving them bankable identities, we are essentially opening doors to their financial inclusion. With BVN enrollment and farm record-keeping skills, farmers can build a financial history, making them eligible for loans and other financial services.
