Prof. Martin Anikwe is a Professor of Soil Science at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Agbani, Enugu state. He is also the immediate past Commissioner for Agriculture, Enugu State, in this interview with RAPHAEL EDE, he says that if the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of the Federal Government is implemented the way it is planned, Nigeria will meet their food security demand.
What is happening with Enugu Songhai Initiative?
Actually the Songhai Enugu initiative was a programme that was already established in Enugu state before I became the commissioner for agriculture and the aim of the Songhai initiative actually was to involve the youths in agriculture. So, government at that time decided to draw the interest of the youths into agriculture.
So what happened is that they selected some graduates and send them to Benin Republic to the Songhai farming to give them practical orientation on how to get involve in agriculture and build their own.
So what the governor whose vision was to go back to agriculture then, what he did was to establish what we called Enugu Songhai Initiative, in Enugu state so that we can perform the function which were hitherto going to Songhai in Benin Republic. So he decided to establish the Enugu Songhai initiative by locating the farm at Adani, which was converted and rebuilt, with all sorts of facilities, with integrated farming facilities so that the youths can train there for a long time and then go and establish on their own.
That was the aim of the government and also develop modern farm at Heneke in Eziagu local government were they are still operating now. So later run the aim of the Enugu Songhai initiative was to draw the attention of the youths to agriculture to see that agriculture is something that they can do to earn a living the fact that the implementation of that project was not properly implemented was part of the problem, you know there was some problems here and there but that programme was still like drawn the attention of the youths into agriculture and to show that agriculture is a commercial thing you can do to make money. So it is a good initiative on my own personal assessment.
Is that programme still working?
Well, as at now things are still going on. The first phase of implementation of Enugu Songhai Initiative was completed, that is building infrastructure. They’re supposed to be entering the second phase of empowering the youths, so that they will be self-sufficient on their own and allowing them to produce, that I think is where they are now.
Unemployment and agriculture?
There is no other way to provide employment to the teeming youths of this country, no other better way than engaging them in agriculture. Agriculture is the fastest way to get youths to have productive undertaken. The truth is that we are still paying lip-service to agriculture and that is why we are not doing what we are supposed to do.
Take for instance, Enugu state government recently established Enugu Pineapple Project in Agwu local Government Area, that farm is three thousand hectareswhich when finished is supposed to provide employment for more than 2,500 people. So you can think of number of youths who are going to be engaged. It is not a small because it is being done in collaboration with foreign partnership likeSankalus Group.
In Mexico where this Sankalus Group exist they engaged over 3,000 people. Right now they are clearing and planting pineapple and things are going as planned. I can assure you as I speak more than 100 to 200 people are already engaged primarily working in that farm. So there is no better thing to do than to engage our youths so that people can start agricultural farm here and there.
What they need is to key into the government transformation agenda and proper implementation of that agricultural transformation agenda of the federal government is one of the surest way. I believe in that transformation agenda and I look at if it is implemented the way it is planned Nigeria will meet their food security demand.
What is the place of mechanised agriculture in the transformation agenda of the government?
In the agriculture implementation action plan, agricultural mechanisation is an important aspect of that plan. There is no way one person using ordinary hoe can produce a lot of food. If you use hoe, you produce for your family; if you use animal you produce for your kindred or clan or community and when you use machine you can produce for the whole nation.
Agricultural mechanisation is the key aspect of agriculture, in fact is the missing link now in the transformation agenda. Let me tell you I come from a village close to Enugu and it takes 15 minutes drive from here (city centre) and in 2012, when Enugu pineapple project started in that village was the first time a tractor was seen working in that village, for the first time this is 2014 I tell you we are very, very low in agricultural mechanisation. Countries like USA, even India and other developing countries are far ahead of us in terms of mechanisation. We need to mechanize our agriculture so that we can feed the nation. Even if the whole of the country Nigeria cannot finish twohecters a day, a good tractor can do that so we need to mechanize our agriculture. Mechanisation of agriculture is not just bringing in tractors, other range of equipment including processing. If you want to process maize you cannot thresh maize of twohecters by hand, you need to employ machine to do that.
We have tractors lying unused near Zonal Headquarter of FRCN South east, why are they there?.
About lettering of tractors here and there, the thing is that government should hands off direct control of agricultural production. Government should not go and buy tractors because that is why they buy wrong tractors that you cannot use. So government should encourage the private industries to go into agriculture and to manage the system, when they do that, they will buy the right stuff for themselves and make money from it.
What government should do is to seat-down and support their effort by providing the enabling environment, providing credit of low digit interest rate because there is no way somebody can start a farm in Nigeria now with a borrowing interest rate at 21% and you will make profit in agriculture. It is not possible, you need to give special concession and to allow the farmers to get credit at very, very low digit 4 or 5% that is what people do in advanced countries. If you tell me to go and borrow money to start a poultry or maize farm at interest rate of 21percent, it is not possible, therefore people like you who may want to engage in agriculture will not be able to engage in the way we are talking about because it needshuge investment, it needs capital.
