Some Nigerian states have embarked on activities that could promote agricultural production in the states. For Edo State, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Stephen Idehenre, said no fewer than 2,078 Small Holder Farmers (SHFs) have benefitted from irrigation equipment and assets. The commissioner stated this while flagging off the distribution of the equipment in Benin-City, saying, “14 persons were empowered with solar irrigation pumps, 436 persons were given 218 pumps while some poultry farmers from Oredo, Egor, Ikpoba Okha and Uhunmwonde LGAs benefitted from feather-picking machines”.
Idehenre explained that the empowerment was part of the Nigeria’s Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES), funded by the World Bank, Federal Government and the Edo State Government, noting the equipment were distributed under the FADAMA Edo CARES window. He further said, “The distribution of the irrigation equipment and agricultural assets is geared towards revolutionalising the agricultural sector, as well as supporting all-round farming in the state”. Idehenre added that a total of 1,832 farmers had earlier benefited from the programme in the state. Earlier, Edward Izevbigie, Edo State Coordinator of the FADAMA project, as he charged beneficiaries to make use of the facilities to improve on their farming activities.
Responding, one of the beneficiaries, who is a tomato farmer, Kanabe Ahmed, commended the federal and state governments for the empowerment. In a related development, 13 designated communities and farmers in Cross River State have received 3.5 million oil palm seedlings and nurseries in the last seven months from the government to expand their farms. The Commissioner for Information, Erasmus Ekpang, said it was part of an aggressive elevation of the state’s oil palm production status, noting that oil palm was one of the cash crops they were poised to promote. He explained that this would be done from a N30 billion commercial agricultural development fund called “Project Grow”, meant to boost the sector.
He said it was the single largest agricultural productivity reform, which the government had embarked upon to promote all-year-round agricultural production. He also disclosed that the administration had approved the Cross River State-Wide Irrigation Infrastructure Development Project (SWIID), adding that they were attracting investment in the cassava sub-sector. In this regard, be said that the state had developed its Cassava Value Chain Development Policy framework for Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) due to be launched soon. Erasmus further said that they had approved and commenced the extension of the current Small Holder Cocoa Development Scheme to include the development of cocoa estates in Akamkpa, Akpabuyo, Odukpani, Ikom Obubra and Bekwara local councils under Phase 1 while regeneration of existing ones was ongoing.
Meanwhile, the Niger State Governor, Muhammad Bago has expressed the desire of his state to cultivate over 4.5 million hectares of land within the next 10 years. Speaking during the signing of an Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), with the Alternative Bank on Sustainable Development of the State, saying only one per cent of arable land had so far been cultivated in the state. The governor disclosed that the state government intends to procure some earth moving equipment like caterpillar, bulldozers, pale loaders graders on a long lease to prepare land for cultivation of about 4.5m hectares which is half of it cultivable land in the next 10 years, and that Niger State was discussing with Almarai; a Saudi Arabian multinational dairy company for the production of Alfalfa plant havens discovered the economic value of the plant, adding that the protein content of the plant will be studied with a view to getting better seedlings for planting.
Bago also said an international partner had expressed willingness to invest US$65 million to have a sugarcane plantation on five hectares of land in the state, with an estimated output of 50,000 tonnes of sugar annually, about 4,767 job opportunities, production of methanol, 40,000 tonnes of animal feeds and generation of 11mgwt of electricity while the state government had concluded plans to get Ijarah Sukuk at the capital market for between five and seven years, which would reduce cost and the equipment would return the investment made without the state necessarily investing into the venture.
In a related development, the country’s tropical climate can adequately support the production of diverse species and varieties of oilseed crops such as almond, avocado, hazelnut, canola, castor, dika nut, melon, oil bean, sesame, cotton, linseed, flaxseed, coconut, peanut, soybean, oil palm, olive and walnut. This is because the increasing importance of oilseeds in industries is due to their phytochemical and other functional properties. According to the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), oilseeds and products markets in Nigeria are changing rapidly. The use in food consumption, industries and livestock feeds are undergoing robust growth. FarmingFarmersFarms gathered that some initiatives by some research institutes, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as well as stakeholders in the private sector are increasing the production and productivity of major oilseeds in the country.
The Director-General of RMRDC, Prof. Ibrahim Hussaini informed that due to various interventions and collaborations, Nigeria’s oil palm production sector was expanding as new estates with early and high yielding oilseeds were being established. He said the Federal Government initiated several interventions on the development of major oilseeds, and that in 2019, the government formulated a policy to invest US$500 million in expanding palm oil production with the aim to increase palm oil production by 700 per cent over a period of eight years (2019-2027) and boost annual local production to 5.0 million tonnes from the 1.0 million metric tonnes produced in the years 2018/2019.
Hussaini further said, “This is encouraging increased utilisation of major oilseeds in the country. When refined, palm oil is used in the food industry as margarine, sugar confectionary, frying fat and special fat. It is also used in emulsion base, powdered and convenience food products. Palm oil and palm kernel oil have been used to replace butterfat in ice cream and in milk preparation. Infant formulas, as well as salad oils, are now being made with palm oil as it has a low melting point”. He added that the council had been a major promoter of oleochemicals production from palm oil while the number of small scale oleochemicals-producing companies is on the increase locally. In addition, palm oil utilisation for production of rubber, glycerine, candles and cosmeticsare on the increase due to the Research and Development, and investment promotion activities of the council in collaboration with private sector investors, he said.
“To alleviate soybean shortage, the CBN through its Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP) facilitated the smallholder outgrower projects. This enabled farmers to plant and sell the produce after harvest. This was to reduce importation as the import in 2021/2022 was estimated at 100,000 metric tonnes, up nearly 100 per cent greater than the 2020/2021 estimate of 50,000 tonnes. Locally, soybean is increasingly being used in affordable production of cake with favourable texture characteristics. Due to its high oleic acid content, it is used in cookies madding icing, pies, bread making, deep frying, packaged foods and in fried snacks. Among the non-food applications are the production of caulks and mastics, which are useful as adhesives or sealants. RMRDC has developed small scale oil processing equipment for soyoil production. This equipment which is in the Technology and Innovation Centre of RMRDC is promoting soy oil production locally and its available to investors who are interested in soybean processing”.
In the stories titled, ‘Farmers get sweet potato vines in Nasarawa’ and ‘Nigeria gets first wholly indigenous processing plant’, FarmingFarmersFarms had reported that in a bid to address food insecurity in the country, the Federal Government, in a collaboration with the Green Economy Alternative Nigeria (GEAN) and the Nasarawa State Government, had empowered no fewer than 100 farmers with sweet potato vines, in order to achieve sufficient production of sweet potato in the state while the government, in partnership with the Onion and Garlic Processing Partnership Limited (O&G Company), have inaugurated the first Indigenous Onion and Garlic flakes processing plant in Sokoto State that would reduce the N300 billion post-harvest losses to the barest minimum, which had been a major challenge facing the nation’s agriculture sector.
