The Federal Government has been expressing its desire to focus substantially on agriculture in deemphasising oil as the main source of revenue. Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, Minister of State for Agriculture & Rural Development spoke with Caleb Ojewale, during the 42nd meeting of the National Council on Agriculture & Rural Development which recently held in Port Harcourt. He emphasises the need for private sector to take advantage of opportunities in the lucrative sector.
We’ve been working with $5 billion as the value of Nigeria’s food import bill which is no longer sustainable, but, at the National Council on Agriculture meeting last week, the figure was put at $22.5 billion. Can you shed some light on this?
That has been the figure. When we came, the statistics we have showed Nigeria’s food import bill is $22 billion. And that figure itself is being disputed, because some people are saying the figure is far less than what we actually spend on food import; because we import virtually everything. Nigeria was in trade deficit with every other country. Today we are happy that some countries within the region at least come to Kano, Sokoto, Jigawa. They are entering Nigeria to come and buy goods but before, we were in trade deficit with every country in the world; including Benin republic.
What can the private sector do to compliment government’s efforts so that we can bridge this food import bill?
Since 2011 it has been advocated that agriculture should be seen as a business. Not just an occupation for the rural people, but to see it as a business especially because of the value addition in respect of different value chains. And if we are importing food to the tune of $22 billion, that is money that effectively the private sector can earn in Nigeria. There is no excuse why we have to spend $22 billion importing food, there is no excuse for Nigeria to spend $5-6 million to import rice daily and of course you can see the steady increase in rice production, in Kebbi, Jigawa, Ebonyi and a couple of other states. Rice can grow in about 28 states in the country and so we believe that the $22 billion that we spend to import food in Nigeria is available for the private sector to earn. And I believe that the private sector has to take advantage of it and invest in agribusiness, not only in production but in processing, branding, and marketing. The private sector is key to Nigeria’s sustenance of food security. We can create a lot of employment with agribusiness. In all of this, the collaboration between government and the private sector is needed in seeing potentials in the sector and invest massively.
Talking about this collaboration, funding is a key issue. The FG has spoken about recapitalising the Bank of Agriculture so first, what progress has been made in this regard? And, when can we get to give farmers the good news that more low interest fund is readily available?
The Bank of Agriculture has just gotten a new management that was inaugurated on Tuesday (last week). The mandate given to them is to see how they can restructure. First of all, Bank of Agriculture is analogue. They are still carrying analogue documents (such as using passbooks). There is no transaction that could be done in one branch and known in any other branch or even the head office. If you remember, federal government just established the development bank of Nigeria, and the Federal Executive Council gave approval for ministry of finance to raise to $1.2 billion. Same thing is intended to be done for Bank of Agriculture. Ministry of finance will collaborate with Ministry of agriculture, Central Bank of Nigeria, the Rabo bank of Netherlands and so many other investors that are ready to contribute towards raising the desired funds for Bank of Agriculture.
The new BOA appointees have been given their clear mandate and those who were appointed are people who are credible, and we believe that in a short time the bank will be restructured and funds will be released. I’m sure that before the end of the year Bank of Agriculture will be a completely different bank from what it’s always been.
Do you think there’s anything that can be done to incentivise commercial banks to make more funds available for agriculture, particularly at low interest rates?
The problem we have is that it is difficult for us to get the commercial Banks which are basically owned by private sector investors whose ultimate goal is to make as much profit as possible, to invest in agriculture. A lot of them have seen agric as one venture that has a lot of risk and they have not really shown interest in investing. Once they know there is competition, with what is happening in the oil sector that has attracted a lot of bad debts, we believe that the commercial banks will have no choice than to invest in agriculture. The Federal Government created Nigerian Incentive Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) which is a subsidiary of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to be able to de-risk investments by the commercial banks in agriculture. If the commercial banks were initially thinking there’s too much risk in lending to agroprenuers, now with NIRSAL’s emergence to de-risk and guarantee repayment where a farmer or an agropreneur defaults, they are willing to pay back the loan advanced by the commercial bank. I believe that Federal Government is steadily giving confidence to the commercial banks to lend to agric sector. So the complaint that if you lend to farmers and they’ll be unable to pay has already been taken of by NIRSAL.
I believe that some banks are also beginning to realise they should start lending to the agric sector particularly short gestation crops; vegetables, maize, rice, and get their money back within a short time. The ministry of agric is doing everything possible, working with NIRSAL and central bank to write off that risk that has been an impediment in lending to agric sector. 18 percent, even 10 percent can’t even suffice and that is why NIRSAL is saying that if you lend at even 18 percent or any other (high) interest rate NIRSAL is going to write off the interest rate to make it single digit. The Federal Government is doing a lot in that regard.
The law establishing agric insurance in Nigeria has been described by some people as a stumbling block for access to funding as it has not given the private sector insurers the proper leeway to support agricultural financing through insurance guarantee. What is your take on this?
It is true that the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) act essentially vests the responsibility of insuring agribusiness in it, but that doesn’t stop the other insurance companies from insuring agribusiness. The problem has been, even the insurance sector was not interested in insuring agribusiness because of the same reason banks were not lending to agric sector. NAIC act is not an impediment; it didn’t say any private sector owned insurance company cannot insure agribusiness, it doesn’t say so. It lies with the individual investor to decide whether he wants NAIC to insure his agribusiness or wants private sector insurance company to insure his agribusiness. It depends on choice by the prospective investor to do that. The insurance companies had exhibited the same attitude just like the commercial banks because they feel there is too much risk involved in agribusiness. But, things are changing people are realising that to insure oil sector contracts is more dangerous than insuring farms. So I believe that with renewed interest in agriculture generally across the country, private sector insurance companies should also have a rethink about the whole thing and start insuring agribusiness because there is nothing stopping them from insuring agribusiness.
Last year, I came about a report with satellite imaging data that showed certain vessels which consistently engaged in Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in Nigerian waters. Are there measures being put in place to check the activities of these individuals so that we can get more legitimate Nigerians benefiting from the wealth in our oceans?
Part of the challenge that we have today is that we have only about 120 fishing trawlers licensed to fish within our territorial waters and half of it is owned by one company called Atlantic Shrimpers. The rest are owned by different individual companies that have been fishing within our territorial waters. Nigeria’s coastline is the biggest within the gulf of guinea and we certainly do not have the capacity as it were to be able to combat the illegal and unregistered fishing activities by those who are coming from other parts of the world to come and take our fish away.
Liberia has been able to reduce illegal and unregistered fishing by 82 percent, and I believe that if Liberia could do that, Nigeria has no choice than to also do the same. In furtherance of our quest to see how we can reduce that, the president has given approval for us to get two vessels for the Nigerian Navy and our fisheries officers to be able to do that. We need much more than that but we have to start from somewhere so we are doing something about it. We have procured two vessels to be given to the Navy in working with our fisheries officers to combat illegal fishing. It is a long way to go and it is the work of Nigerian Navy to ensure our maritime waters are safe and prevent them from encroachment by vessels that have no license to operate on our territorial waters. But that is itself challenging as our territorial waters are over 800 kilometres, so it is very difficult for the Nigerian Navy to police the entire stretch. Which is why we are collaborating with other sister countries to see how to get that done.
According to the Agriculture Promotion Policy we have a deficit of 1.7 million metric tonnes in fish… [cuts in]
Nigeria’s deficit is (actually) 2.1 million metric tonnes. Total demand is 3.2 million metric tonnes, and Nigeria produces 1.1 million metric tonnes of fish, so there is a deficit of 2.1 million metric tonnes.
Then that means we need to update the APP because it shows 1.7mmt
Yes, that (figure) was before.
Now that we are relying mostly on importation to meet this deficit, what are you doing to incentivise more people to go into fish production?
One of the things we are doing now is backward integration. Let people who are in fishery industry, and who are often given fish license to import also do a lot of aquaculture in Nigeria; to employ our people and then bridge the gap.
So, what we do is that we do not give quota for the whole deficit, like last year we gave less than one million metric tonnes. This year we are also giving less than one million metric tonnes. So, a gap of 1.1 million metric tonnes is still there because what we are saying is that we are not going to encourage fish import. Let us see how we can encourage more people to invest in aquaculture. When we assumed office, our total production was 800 thousand metric tonnes, now there is steady increase to 1.1 million metric tonnes. And so I believe that by 2019, a lot more investments in aquaculture would have taken place and that automatically will be bridging the gap.
Looking at this increment in fish production, more people seem to go into catfish production which is almost like the ‘national fish’ everywhere we go. But, there is a view that if we get people to go into producing other species, people will probably get more options and not want to purchase the imported ones; in essence boost local production while letting us bridge the deficit. So, what do you think is responsible for people choosing to stick with just one variety when they can actually expand and diversify their production base, and what can be done to encourage more production of different varieties?
Basically, a lot of Nigerians are more into catfish, because it is easier to breed. That is the reason. In Ghana there are more people breeding Tilapia. But, in the last one year or two, a lot of people have also been investing in Tilapia. Some weeks ago I was in Ogun state to commission the first harvest of Premium Aquaculture Limited in Oyan dam. Before then I was at Triton Aquaculture in Ibadan that has the biggest aquaculture farm for Tilapia in Nigeria. Because of our policy on backward integration, a lot of people are investing not only in Tilapia but also in Catfish which generally is the easiest to breed. But Tilapia takes a longer time and is much more difficult to breed. But as the market potentials are made known to potential investors, more people are also diversifying into Tilapia breeding. And I believe that before long, more people will diversify to breeding Tilapia. Tilapia and Catfish are basically the two that people breed but more; about 95 percent of our people, are breeding catfish because it is easier. Some people have started realising that Tilapia is also one that they need to do because of the huge market that exists in Nigeria. Instead of bringing in Tilapia from China, what is produced here is fresh, and healthier for people to consume.
Nigeria and Morocco entered into bilateral agreements which included production of fertilisers. The rains have started this year so we would like to know; what has been the progress in making fertilisers available?
That was an initiative by the governor’s forum, that we should import phosphate from Morocco and then get Urea to blend for different farmers in different states to be able to buy at N5,500. But, that is not stopping the agro dealers that normally were involved in distribution of fertiliser under the Growth Enhancement Scheme introduced by the ministry of agriculture. This agreement with Morocco certainly can’t meet the demands of Nigerian farmers. And so it is being done side by side with the agro dealers that know where the farmers are and have been distributing fertilisers to them. This agreement with Morocco is only NPK, Urea is not included, likewise other micronutrients. Therefore, there is normal distribution of Urea through the agro dealers to farmers. I also know that because of the fact that they are just starting; just a few months ago, it will take some time for them to be able to meet the demand, and this demand may never be met because more people are going into agriculture.
That is why we are encouraging our agro dealers to also intensify efforts and expand their distribution network for more people to have access to it.
The success of rural agriculture depends to a large extent on extension services. What plans have been put in place to reinvigorate the extension services for agriculture to rebound and boom as we want it to?
Extension service is a major challenge that we have. In other countries such as Ethiopia, there is a minimum of four extension workers in every small community. But in Nigeria, the extension workers that we have are all aging and there was no investment in extension services before this administration came in. Recently under the N-Power program, some 30,000 youths in the first batch were recruited to be trained on extension work. Once those people are trained, we will be able to largely solve the problem of extension service. But certainly, that is one sector that we are lacking and that is also what is needed to be able to educate the farmers on fertiliser application, chemical application or even how to plant. If the illiterate woman in the village is taught the right best practices, that will improve productivity.
It appears Nigeria does not have a national pesticides policy in place and this allows inflows of adulterated pesticides into our markets. Because these chemicals are adulterated farmers use them in large quantities, impacting on pesticides residues recorded on farm outputs. What efforts are being made to make this legislation a reality?
It is a major challenge that we have at the quarantine services, and also the veterinary department. It can only be solved by extension workers, because these people need to be educated on the quantity and type of pesticides and herbicides that need to be used on the farms. What we have heard is that those who are planting are using these chemicals, those who are storing are also using chemicals and by the time the products get to the market, we will already have excess dosage of chemical use. It can only be solved by extension workers and we believe that the first step in solving that problem is the availability of extension workers. With this 30,000, it is a starting point. We are also going to get the federal department of extension service to train a lot more people on extension services. Unless we achieve that it will be difficult for us to address it. You can’t be on every farm; you can’t actually regulate what they use, quantum and types of chemicals that are used on every individual farm. It can only be solved by extension service which we are trying as much as possible to get more people to help in that direction.
Still on pesticides, Nigeria was banned by the EU last year on account of high volume of pesticides in some commodities, particularly beans. Are there any updates in reducing the ban?
We are already meeting the requirements by the EU towards the lifting of the ban. That is why quarantine service really needs to get the commendation that they deserve. They’ve been doing a lot to see how before you export anything out of the country, what you’re exporting has to be certified before it is exported. There is also an argument that quarantine service has to be taken back to the seaports. The reason why the beans that led to ban, left this country was because quarantine was not given opportunity to be able to certify whether the beans were worthy to be exported out of Nigeria. But [ironically] when it was returned, quarantine was called in to come and take it even though it wasn’t called when the consignment was leaving the country in order to approve and certify it. We are working as part of the presidential intervention on the ease of doing business to see how that can be concluded, so that quarantine service can be returned to the seaports before we even get banned for other crops apart from the beans. But for the beans, we have met substantial requirements of the EU and we believe that in no distant time, the ban will be lifted.
What strategies are in place for farmers across the country to be compliant in terms of chemical usage?
Basically, all these things can only be achieved by extension services. As part of the strategies, we are also collaborating with the state governments and our offices across the 36 states of the country to continue embarking on farmer education. But, what we have here is a situation where those who apply these chemicals are doing so based on lack of knowledge and so the problem can be solved only by farmer education because there’s no way we can be in every farm. When we have these 30,000 youths added to the extension service and deployed to all the local governments area across the country, they will also carry on with the farmer education policy of the federal ministry of agriculture on the use of chemicals.
These chemicals we are talking about do a lot of harm [not only to foreigners]. Nigerians are only concerned about how it affects the export market but how about those who are consuming them in Nigeria. What is not good for Europeans to eat is also not good for Nigerians to eat, but in Nigeria there are no standard controls at the moment to ensure some of these crops planted with heavy use of chemicals are prevented from being consumed by Nigerians. We are also printing pamphlets in different local languages and distributing them to farmers through the agro dealers that reach out to these farmers in the distribution of fertilisers. So we believe that with time, we will be able to solve that problem.
I understand you got your PHD last year with a thesis on The Practice of Environmental Rights: The Case of the Nigerian Niger-Delta. We have heard a lot about environmental degradation in the region and how it affects agriculture. But, looking at solutions, what alternatives are there for the region to also be competitive in agriculture?
Yes, my PHD was on environmental rights; the case of the Niger Delta. I know that there’s been a lot of environmental pollution over the years in the Niger Delta, but if you want to wait until the issue of environmental pollution is solved, then the Niger Delta will never evolve in any agribusiness (and in any farming at all). But as God will have it, if you travel from here to Calabar, to Benin, Ondo state, all you see is green!
In the midst of the pollution the environment is still looking great, which means that despite the pollution, the land is still fertile for the people of Niger Delta to also invest in agribusiness.
What we are doing is possibly extending the same support that farmers in other regions are getting which has led to huge increment in their production; also to people of the Niger delta. The truth is that most people in the Niger Delta perhaps because of the oil wealth have also not shown sufficient interest in agriculture but we are telling them that look, in the colonial era there was a study that was carried out and it clearly showed that Niger Delta was more known for our potentials in agriculture than even in oil.
In the Niger Delta everything grows. If you visit any of the farms in the Niger Delta everything you can possibly think of from rice to maize. Everything is growing with or without fertiliser, in fact basically more without fertiliser. By the time we extend fertiliser and chemical supply, and extension services to those in the Niger Delta, I believe that they can also contribute immensely to the food security that we are hoping to achieve in Nigeria, particularly for our staples by the year 2019.
Agriculture is a business and what we are doing is to enlighten them (i.e. people in Niger Delta) on the potentials that exist in agriculture. The fact that the environment is polluted can’t be an impediment because you still see green everywhere which means that the soil is still fertile. We are encouraging them and we have some rice mills we want to distribute, likewise oil mills and other equipment that the ministry has procured and will distribute to potential agropreneurs across the country.
There is a lot of interest from people in the Niger Delta to also participate in these schemes. So I believe that the Niger Delta people now know that agriculture can flourish and they are willing to also participate in our agric revolution.
I believe that in the next few years, we will see some of these ex-agitators owning their rice mills. Some of them are already doing it (including) in Bayelsa. Also, the amnesty office is doing something to say; look, the Federal Government cannot sustain this payment forever so it is better that you create employment for yourself. I believe that the fact there was and is pollution in the Niger Delta is not a barrier to agribusiness in the Niger Delta.
