Callous rice farmers

The efforts of the Federal Government to ensure food sufficiency by boosting rice production in Kebbi State is threatened by the unbecoming attitude of the farmers who are reluctant to repay the over seventeen billion Naira loan granted them through the local chapter of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, RIFAN. The facility was extended to them for dry season cultivation late in November 2015.

However, the rice farmers after accessing the loans which they utilized effectively to realize bountiful harvest, turned around to undermine the intentions and expectations of the benefactors by their negative disposition towards the loan. Many of them make use of the proceeds from yields to marry more wives and buy new cars and motor-cycles.
Initially more than half a million farmers throughout Kebbi State registered for the rice cultivation scheme but only seventy-eight out of them, from various local government areas, were successful at the screening to receive the much sought-after loan. They were eventually empowered with fifty to sixty thousand naira each in accordance with the size of their farmlands. The monetary incentives are in addition to sets of pumping machines, fertilizers and improved seedlings.

Regrettably, the farmers refused to comply to earlier agreements concerning the issuance of the loans, erroneously believing that they do not have pay as they have regarded them as their share of the dividends of democracy. So even they have used the money in improving their social status by taking in new wives and buying automobiles to signify their ‘arrival’, the government would still advance them more loans since it solely exists to satisfy them in that regards.
But the government thinks otherwise about this unacceptable and irresponsible behavior of the inconsiderate farmers. It has to recover the loans which were intended to be part of a revolving scheme so that more beneficiaries could be attracted to further solidify the rice cultivation project and strengthen its objectives. It had consequently set up a Loan Recovery Committee headed by the Deputy Governor, Sama’ila Yombe Debai which after months of persuasion threatened to prosecute the defaulters.

The zeal of the loan recovery committee has so far been commendable as it is going from house-to-house in search of the defaulters and that has yielded positive and encouraging results as some of them are forthcoming about the repayment.
This is indeed a sad development which capable of derailing concerted efforts at ending the importation of cereals such as rice and wheat from America and Asian country which the Central Bank of Nigeria sai is costing this country a whopping one trillion Naira annually. This is prohibitive and forbidding to a country that needs such resources to end the prevailing recession and promote quick economic growth.

However, it was unfortunate that a number of states in this country are yet to give adequate priority to rice production similar to those in the North-west Zone. That was indeed a very sad development which had clearly portrayed the governments as extremely insensitive to the plight of rice farmers and completely incapable of solving the numerous problems that can cause severe food insecurity in the country with adverse effects on the farmers’ fortune at harvest times.
Compounding these problems are the negligence and sloppiness of the governments in adequately supporting the farmers through their agricultural enterprises by neglecting agricultural mechanization. This will free the peasant farmers from practicing in an archaic manner, using rudimentary and makeshift implements. Likewise, the vast, lush, vegetative lands in all parts of Northern Nigeria, now lying fallow, are not put under cultivation to provide greater opportunity to the unemployed youths to engage in agricultural pursuit, thus taking realistic steps towards increased productivity.

This commendable gesture could be further complemented by the rational use of the storm water harnessed in the earth dams, constructed over streams and rivulets in the remotest parts of the rural areas, for irrigating the same crops raised during the wet season severally in the dry season.
Insufficiency of fertilizer or the innumerable problems associated with its procurement and distribution, were the major causes for low-output level, and as a result of under utilization of the immense resources available locally for manufacturing all varieties of fertilizers, industrialists from other countries benefit immensely from the huge amount of money expended annually in fertilizer importation to this country.

The dire consequence of this regrettable situation has been the massive importation of an assortment of foodstuff every year. In that way Nigerian businessmen engaging in wholesome importation of rice have succeeded in stifling Nigeria’s agrarian enterprise, thus facilitating conditions necessary for flooding their homes and markets daily with inferior produce. This is despite Nigeria’s infinite agricultural potentials and countless resources. Nigerians must, therefore, shake off those unbecoming tendencies capable negating efforts aimed at acceleration rice production to attain self-sufficiency in record time. They must also be fully encouraged to actively engage in rice cultivation to meet local demands and to also satisfy their insatiable appetite for rice.