Farmers SOURCE Vanguard 1
Chijioke Iremeka
With climate change and variability affecting weather patterns, and manifesting in the form of late rainfall in Nigeria, farmers and agriculturists are concerned that delayed planting of annual and seasonal crops may impact harvest, worsening food insecurity amid projected food crises. This, CHIJIOKE IREMEKA writes, may take Nigeria steps back on its drive to attaining food sustainability.
Harvesting on his expansive farm has brought nothing but frowns to the face of Alhaji Mudi Farouk, a Kano-born mechanised farmer. By this time last year, he was already wheeling out the first set of farm produce from the hectares, but the late arrival of rain in 2024 made that joyful dividend impossible.
Skipping certain crops due to the absence of rain left him grappling with irrigation as an option due to the arid nature of the land
Farouk, who feared that there would be a bleak harvest and food crisis in Nigeria, said aside from the late arrival of the rain, the majority of farmers have abandoned their farms because of non-state armed groups with a penchant for killing farmers and burning farmlands.
The middle-aged farmer said the delayed rainfall had worsened the situation as farmers could no longer cultivate certain crops, including staple foods like millet, sorghum, groundnuts, and others as their planting season elapsed.
Mudi Farouk
According to him, the inability to plant these crops meant they would be in short supply across the country.
Farmers hounded by bandits
Agric experts said Nigeria has been facing a serious food crisis since the emergence of Boko Haram, herdsmen-farmers crisis and other forms of criminality, especially in the North where the majority of Nigeria’s staple foods are produced.
They said the burning of arable farmlands, the killing of farmers and having cattle graze on crops that took months of cultivation, made the surviving ones abandon farming.
Cattle grazing near a maize-field-in Nigeria Source: The Sun
About 165 farmers were reportedly killed in March 2024, and 200 were displaced, forcing over 72, 000 others to shun farming for fear of being attacked and killed by bandits, according to the Chairman of the Kaduna Chapter of the Association, Alhaji Mohammed Numbu.
He said the adverse impact of insecurity would be evident in poor harvest, inflation and scarcity of food leading to price gouging, a practice of increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.
Further speaking on challenges that would impact Nigeria’s food security in 2024 and beyond, Farouk said before the issue of delayed rainfall, farmers abandoned their farmlands due to herdsmen’s attacks, a development he said is now fuelling hunger and food crisis in the country.
He lamented that farmers are now endangered species and targets of marauding kidnappers.
According to him, farmers in Katsina and Zamfara states, out of fear, pay taxes to bandits before planting and while harvesting their produce to avoid having their months of sweat and tending to go up in flames.
Farouk, who has farms in Jigawa, Kano, and Nasarawa states, told our correspondent that when farmers are kidnapped, most do not have the money to secure their freedom and are forced to sell their farmlands to politicians.
This, he laments, reduces the availability of farmlands and causes farmers to keep migrating from one state to another in search of free lands, leading to poor food production.
Continuing, Farouk said herdsmen and Boko Haram have killed over 8, 000 farmers in the past two years, noting that this, alongside delayed rainfall will worsen the situation of food insecurity.
He called on the government’s intervention to avert the looming food crisis through the provision of irrigation, improved inputs, and agricultural insurance, among other innovations.
“Before the late arrival of the rain, which had numerous negative impacts on the country’s 2024 food production, farmers in the north have been at the mercy of bandits.
“For instance, in some states like Katsina and Zamfara, farmers pay taxes to bandits before planting their crops. After planting, they will still pay bandits before harvesting, yet there are governments in those states.
“The farmers in these locations dare not farm or harvest their crops without paying those taxes. The consequences are dire. It is either the farmer is killed, or his farms are set ablaze, and all efforts will be wasted. Of course, this also causes scarcity and hunger,” Farouk lamented.
Climate change, insecurity impact Nigeria’s food production
With climate change, impacts from delayed rainfall, prolonged droughts and extreme heat worsen and threaten the ability to produce enough nutritious food to ensure everyone has access to it at an affordable rate.
Climate change
Image Source: Sphera
Such problems, when combined with other pressures on food systems like growing conflict, mean food will become less affordable and more people will go hungry.
According to the March 2024 Cadre Harmonise analysis, an estimated 4.8 million people in the BAY states (Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe) will be food insecure at the peak of the 2024 lean season (June – August).
The report predicts low harvests due to the dry spell, as well as high food prices, and persistent insecurity among the main drivers of food insecurity.
The United Nations World Food Programme said an estimated 333 million people face acute food insecurity in 2023 in 78 countries where it works, which is a huge boost from about 200 million before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over two million Nigerian children suffer severe acute malnutrition
According to the World Health Organisation, an estimated 2 million children in Nigeria suffer from severe acute malnutrition, but only two out of every 10 affected are currently reached with treatment.
The WHO noted that seven per cent of women of childbearing age also suffer from acute malnutrition.
Malnourished toddlers – Image Source: AP
A Director of Nutrition Services and Health Education at the Osun State Primary Health Care Development Board, James Oloyede, said that hunger can impact negatively on human health.
Dr James Oloyede
He said without food, there won’t be a source of nutrients for the body and when people don’t feed on balanced diets, there will be widespread malnutrition of both adults and children.
“Malnutrition is not good for anybody or country as it affects our optimal development and could cause a lot of damage to the brain of children including making them have stunted growth and some others wasted.
“When these conditions occur, of course, their brain will not work well and they may be useless to society, and this is why healthy feeding can’t be overemphasised. Hunger is bad, we don’t need it. Farmers should be encouraged,” he added.
Irrigations, high-yielding crops, a necessity
Speaking on possible agricultural innovations that could increase crop yield despite the extreme weather effect and bleak food supply, Farouk urged the government to be proactive in solving these problems caused majorly by climate change and criminal groups.
According to him, several agricultural innovations such as the use of high-yielding crop varieties, weather-tolerant seeds and seedlings would help the situation alongside irrigated farming.
Farouk, who is also a wet and dry farmer, said scary projections by weather experts have made farmers’ associations embark on irrigation to augment sparse rainfall.
Farouk cultivates tomatoes, wheat, onions, and rice during the dry season, while maize, cereals, millet, sorghum, and rice, among other essential staple foods are planted in the wet season across Kano, Jigawa, and Nasarawa states.
He said, “No matter how scary the weather report may be, it helps us to prepare ahead. We appeal to the government to support the farmers now before it becomes too late. Any support given to the farmers by the government is given to the nation.
“We need seeds with high yield capacity and others that are weather tolerant due to the poor supply of rain. We have also taken several innovations to scale through this prediction and ensure that we have enough food. Of course, irrigation in rice farming is number one.”
The farmer also said there is a need for farmers to understand the essence of agricultural insurance and for the government at all levels to support farmers with insurance.
He added, “When the government supports farmers, it is like supporting the nation, if not, everybody will suffer it.
“Let the government not think that it is feeding the farmers, no! The government is feeding the nation by supporting farmers. Government need to end all forms of politicking in the agricultural sector. The money they said they are giving to the farmers is meant for political farmers and not the real ones.
“We have the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation that the government and private insurance companies can tap into and support the farmers.”
Farouq further noted that insurance companies are everywhere and have extension workers who can give technical advice to the farmers on what to do.
“So, if the government insures our operations, it will help the country in this trying time to secure our food production and supplies,” he asserted.
Losing millions to delayed rainfall
Delayed rainfall and extreme heat have left a Kogi State-based large-scale farmer, Chief Babaniyi Asorose, battling with unimaginable losses.
Our correspondent gathered that his yam seedlings got spoiled in the ground due to drought.
The mechanised farmer said only 30 per cent of his seedlings germinated.
Babaniyi Asorose
Asorose said, “I bought one seed of yam for N500. If multiply the 70 per cent of the yam that didn’t germinate by N500 per one, you will appreciate what the farmers and the country are losing due to extreme weather effects, you will appreciate our loss and how this would affect the country’s food security.
“For yam, the season is almost gone because, by July and August, we should be harvesting yam. I just recorded 30 per cent germination for the yam that I planted. You can’t imagine how much I would lose if others don’t germinate. We need irrigation and inputs.
“In any case, I have made up my mind to plant watermelon in the places where the yam didn’t germinate because I can’t put yam there again. So, the poor and irregular rain will heavily affect this year’s food production and prices.
“By now, if not for the delayed rain, my melon would have started spreading, but it was just yesterday (Tuesday) that I planted the melon.
“Unfortunately, the Nigerian government is not serious about anything. What we need at this time is irrigation. The government should sink boreholes for us and give us pumps and we will do the rest.
‘Govt loan ‘ll avert food scarcity’
“We need a soft loan; we are not asking for free money. We will pay back but this is what we need now to salvage our crops and the situation at hand.”
Asorose, who said he is trying to stay afloat after losing N50m due to the conversion of his cashew plantation into a school by the government, warned that if the issues concerning farmers are not addressed, there is a looming food crisis.
Asorose, who is the Coordinator of the Kogi State Chapter, All Farmers Association of Nigeria, said a good irrigation scheme and improved crop varieties will save the day.
According to him, if the government can give loans to farmers, they would produce more and there would be to eat despite bleak predictions.
He said the government can also buy farm produce from the farmers and sell it to the people at reduced prices.
According to him, this is how to ensure that Nigeria’s food security is guaranteed amid alarming reports.
Asorose said that he used to receive fertilisers for planting and a thousand fingerings for his fish pond but had not received anything this year.
“If the government provides the farmers with all these, it (the government) can easily control the prices as it is trying to do. This is how to control the price and not when the farmers source everything by themselves, somebody will now come to decide the price. It is not done.
“You can achieve price control when you give inputs to the farmers. Then, you can buy their bulk produce and sell to the people at controlled prices. This is what other countries do to guarantee food security,” he insisted.
Asorose noted that with the way the government is going, Nigeria will experience low output in 2024 because the planting season for some crops has passed.
He said this can only be remedied if the country embarks on irrigated farming to make up for the delayed rainfall and lost time.
He noted, for example, that guinea corn cannot be planted again as the season had almost gone, and amid regrets, said he would have been harvesting the first set of groundnuts by now if not for lack of rainfall.
“We have a Federal Government irrigation scheme but it is not working. All we need from the government right now is boreholes and machines to pump out water for irrigation,” he added.
Delayed rainfall worsens food crises
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency on Tuesday, February 20, 2024, presented the 2024 Seasonal Climate Prediction in Abuja, forecasting that delayed rains in some parts of the country, would worsen Nigeria’s situation.
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, said NiMet revealed that Borno, Abia, and Akwa Ibom states would witness the early onset of rain.
Also, it predicted early end of the rainy season in Yobe, Jigawa, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Taraba, Bauchi, Cross River Ebony, Ogun, Lagos, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Ekiti, and some parts of Delta, Ogun, Oyo, Kogi, Kwara, FCT, Niger and Kaduna.
Chairman of the Kaduna Chapter of the Farmers Association, Numbu said that planting is usually delayed when there is a late onset of rainfall and that early cessation will destroy the late crops, thereby causing poor crop yields hunger, poverty, and farmers migration among others.
According to the United Nations, the number of people affected by hunger globally rose to as many as 828 million in 2021, an increase of about 46 million since 2020 and 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The UN report provides fresh evidence that the world is moving further away from its goal of ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030.
Extreme weather, greatest risk to food security
According to a Faculty Member of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Non-Residential Fellowship Programme, Dr Risikat Dauda, the alarming incidences of drought, ocean heat, and changes in snow and rainfall patterns indicate that climate change can cause severe risks to food security and nutritional outcomes in Nigeria.
He noted that with the evidence of climate change, only one per cent of total arable land is equipped for irrigation in Nigeria, saying that this impacts food security and nutritional outcomes in Nigeria.
‘FG’s less impactful state of emergency on agriculture
With Nigeria already plagued by food crises with the population grappling with the skyrocketing prices of foods, the Federal Government acknowledged that 24.7 million Nigerians in 26 states and the Federal Capital Territory were hit by food and nutrition crises, prompting President Bola Tinubu to convene an emergency meeting to roll out interventions.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
The President announced several initiatives that include the supply of fertilisers to farmers and grains to households to arrest the soaring prices of food items and to calm rising tempers.
He also pledged to increase protection for farmers, identification of 500,000 hectares of land for cultivation, and enhance synergy between the ministries charged with agriculture and water resources as a way of solving the food crisis in the country.
On February 8, 2024, the President directed the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to immediately release 42,000 metric tonnes of grains, including maize, millet, and other commodities, from the national strategic grain reserves, during the meeting of the Presidential Committee on Emergency Food Intervention.
Also, the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria committed to releasing about 60,000 metric tonnes of rice into the markets.
The FG also approved a grant of N185 billion to the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, for the purchase of 100,000 bags of rice and other grains to be distributed as palliatives.
More so, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Temitope Fashedemi, through the Director of Special Duties, Adedayo Modupe, said the FG is making efforts to address the situation with various agricultural interventions to boost food production across the country.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, said his ministry is collaborating with the 36 state governors to provide subsidised farm inputs for dry and wet season farming to boost food production and properly identify real farmers to benefit from the interventions.
Promises not enough – Agric expert
However, an agricultural expert and Chief Executive Officer of EA Daniels Farm, Daniel Ijeh, said despite the interventions, the greatest fear remains that insecurity and food prices may trigger a spike in malnutrition across the board.
“There may be unavailability, inaccessibility, and unaffordability of food by Nigerians. I’m an engineer and a farmer, and I grow many tonnes of farm produce every year. In Delta State where I live, I have not seen anything that has been done.
“I think the government is seriously working only in the media. This is because fertiliser prices and other farm inputs are still going up daily. Insecurity threat is rising and access to tractors is not available. My colleague and I lost about N1,000,000 to access the tractor last month.
“So, I have not seen what the government is doing to boost food production. Insecurity should be addressed; inputs should be subsidised; government should intervene in access to farmland; farm financing should be looked into; and high-yield farming expertise should be harnessed and spread by the government,” he added.
FG should invest in an irrigation scheme
A Fellow at the National Agriculture Extension Research Liaison Services, Dr Issa Fadllulah said the country would be paying lip service to the growth of its agricultural sector without an irrigation scheme.
Irrigation farming Source: Daily Civil
He said agriculture is weather dependent, noting that during weather crises, especially in the case of delayed rainfall, farming and crop yields will be affected, adding that some crops will not survive as they have different requirements to thrive.
Fadllulah explained that with irrigation, farmers can cultivate crops like corn up to four times a year.
He said for Nigeria to make meaningful progress in agriculture, it must not depend on rain-fed agriculture, saying that Nigeria will be huge in food production if it fully embraces irrigation.
“Unfortunately, I think we are still paying lip service to agriculture in this country by not fully adopting irrigation. In countries like Saudi Arabia and Dubai, where it rarely rains, they are producing greens all year round. These countries are turning deserts into farmlands through irrigation.”
Corroborating Fadllulah’s views, the Coordinator of the Nigerian Association of Women in Agriculture, Mrs Chahul Ngizan, said this year’s planting season was delayed because of late rainfall.
“In some areas in the country, the rains started in early April. We usually begin the planting season in early March, but this year, most farmers began planting in April. I have planted my yams and cassava, and am currently planting groundnuts.
“We hope the rain continues as scheduled or else, it will affect this year’s harvest,” she lamented.
Ngizan, however, called on farmers to invest in irrigated farming, saying that with irrigation, farmers can plant all through the year without depending on rainfall patterns.
Also speaking, the Lagos State Coordinator, Women in Trade and Agriculture, Mrs Antonia Amakwe said the government should help local farmers with the irrigation system to boost crop cultivation.
“We have been expecting consistent rainfall since March and farmers have been very hopeful that before now, the rain must have begun. We hope the rain begins and it must be consistent to enable the crops to thrive.
“We have been calling on the government over the years to help farmers with irrigated farming to reduce dependence on rain. Irrigation is the only solution to inconsistency in rainfall patterns due to climate change,” she added.
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