Agriculture Archives — Business Bells

Category: Agriculture

Borrowers’ Scheme: Buhari, Nigerian Farmers To Unveil ‘World’s Largest Rice Pyramid’ in Abuja Tuesday

The Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), an initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has been described as a major agricultural breakthrough and a source of pride to the country, as rice farmers continue to count gains under the scheme.

To mark the successes recorded under the programme, particularly, in the area of rice cultivation, the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), in collaboration with the CBN, would today (Tuesday) unveil the world’s largest rice pyramid in Abuja.

President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to unveil the mega pyramid.

Other special guests expected to support the president at the event include the presidents of Benin Republic, Niger Republic, and Chad, as well as governors of Cross River, Ebonyi, Kebbi, Jigawa, Ekiti, and Sokoto states.

RIFAN stated in a publication to announce tomorrow’s programme, “RIFAN will also use the occasion to flag off its 2021 – 2022 Dry Season Farming activities and celebrate the Annual Rice Festival. RIFAN has been the major driver of the rice value chain under the ABP for the past six years. Join us in celebrating rice revolution in Nigeria.

“Let’s celebrate President Muhammadu Buhari’s initiative on food security and self-sufficiency in rice together with the Governor, CBN, Godwin Emefiele.”

Launched by Buhari in 2015, ABP is designed to assist small-scale farmers to increase the production and supply of feedstock to agro-processors with the aim of creating an ecosystem that would link out-growers (smallholders) to local processors.

The thrust of ABP is the provision of inputs in kind and cash (for farm labour) to smallholder farmers with a view to boosting the production of rice, maize, poultry, sorghum, cassava, tomatoes, cotton, palm oil, soybean, among others. The idea is to stabilise input supply to agro-processors and address the country’s negative balance of payment on food.

It is also a loan to farmers without collateral and the benefitting farmers are given farm input and cash to cultivate their farms, including the experiment on rice.

According to the structure of the ABP, a farmer who wants to repay his loan can either do so with cash or give the central bank his/her produce of same value, after which officials of CBN’s Development Finance Department would sell and recover the loan.

The programme has increased banks’ finance to the agricultural sector, enhanced capacity utilisation of agricultural firms involved in the production of identified commodities, as well as the productivity and incomes of farmers.

From an average yield of 1.8 metric tonnes per hectare in the pre-ABP era, the initiative has increased the country’s average yield per hectare for rice paddy and maize to about five metric tonnes per hectare.

Similarly, the average capacity utilisation per annum of domestic integrated rice mills has jumped to 90 per cent, from the 30 per cent that was the case in the era preceding the advent of the ABP.

Additionally, there has been a significant reduction in the country’s rice import bill, from a monstrous $1.05 billion prior to November 2015, to the current figure of $18.50 million, annually. The programme has also created an estimated 12.3 million direct and indirect jobs across the different value chains and food belts of the country.

Notwithstanding the disruptions caused by the COVID-19, the challenges of insecurity, among others, the Emefiele-led CBN, in collaboration with some state governments, has continued to encourage rice farmers to cultivate the crop and support the federal government’s quest for food security.

18 January 2022
BNSL Re-launches ‘ENRICH’ To Halt Malnourishment in Children

A world-class firm which specializes in the production of vitamins, minerals, and nutraceuticals, BNSL Limited, has re-launched the micronutrient powder known as “ENRICH”, focusing predominantly on young children.

The Managing Director of BNSL, Chioma Odimegwu said the aim of the re-launch is to bring the world’s attention to the plight of hundreds of millions of malnourished children all over the world, most especially, within Africa.

Speaking with a cross section of journalists at the firm’s premises in Mowe, Ogun State, Odimegwu pointed out that stunted growth among children was usually caused by poverty, poor child-feeding practices, lack of proper sanitation, lack of clean water, inadequate maternal nutrition, and uninformed practices amongst others.

According to her, statistics show that 41 per cent of all children under five are chronically malnourished in Nigeria, and 23 per cent are underweight. As a result of malnourishment, one million children in this group die annually.

The BNSL boss noted that the magnitude of the problem must be met with a response that reflects the scale and gravity of the situation.

In this regard, she said that BNSL Limited looked forward to delivering fortification as an efficient solution to a national challenge, and to drive a meaningful impact.

“Enrich is a micronutrient powder to be sprinkled and mixed with ready-to-eat food. It is a blend of essential vitamins and minerals, with specially encapsulated iron, for easier digestion”.

“ENRICH provides a convenient formulation for supplementing any low nutrient food. Majorly, it is targeted to meet the daily recommended nutrient intake of children above 6 months of age.”

The features of the product, the managing director said, included free-flowing powder and relatively tasteless, adding that the product did not change the taste, smell or colour of the food.

According to her, the company has successfully delivered over 20million micronutrient powder sachets to various government agencies, private companies and development partners from 2014 to date.

Also speaking at the event, Director, Tree Crops and Rural Development Services, Ministry of Agriculture, Ogun State, Mr James Oyesola, who represented the state Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Adeola Odedina, pledged the state government’s cooperation and partnership to the company.

13 December 2021
12,000 Rice Farmers to Benefit from WOFAN, Mastercard Foundation’s RiceAdvice App in Abuja, Kaduna

No fewer than 12,000 rice farmers in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Kaduna are to benefit from an innovative application – Rice Advice App which has been introduced to 200 extension workers in Abuja and Kaduna.

The Rice Advice App is the initiative of the Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN), a non-profit organization focused on women farmers in the country in partnership with Mastercard Foundation.

Speaking in Abuja on recently, at a training on the Rice Advice app, the President of WOFAN, Hajia Salamatu Garba stated that the extension workers have been trained on the use of the App to advise farmers to enhance their performance and annual yield.

“With this app, they can measure the exact sizes of the farm and advise the farmers on the correct fertilizer application. The app is also useful for predictive analysis because it will be able to proffer information such as expected yields from farms and how farmers can leverage this to maximize profits,” Garba explained.

Also speaking at the event, the Program Lead, Agriculture for Mastercard Foundation in Nigeria, Lois Sankey said the training is aimed at building the savvy of the extension workers on the integration of technology and agriculture which is a testament to the Young Africa Works (YAW) strategy of The Foundation.

“Since the extension workers provide services to the farmers, it is important that their capacity to train the farmers in understanding the principles under the Rice Advice is consistently built. This is particularly important as we go into the dry season farming, so constant training is necessary to increase the extension workers’ capacity” Sankey said.

The WOFAN President noted that the extension workers were part of a total of 200 that are working with WOFAN in the four Northern states of Kaduna, Kano and Jigawa and FCT adding that they were the third batch to be trained.

“We are working in the four states with the Mastercard Foundation. This project encompasses 45,000 farmers who will go back to their various farmers better equipped and more knowledgeable on twenty-first-century strategies of farming. Through this project, we are anticipating a new generation of farmers who will leverage technology to achieve great things”, she noted.

11 October 2021
Agriculture Value-Chain Should Be Enhanced to Increase Attractiveness to Youth, Says Expert

A clarion was made to stakeholders in the agriculture value chain to enhance the sector through mechanization to increase attractiveness for the youth.

This was disclosed during the Sterling Bank Plc’s 2021 Agriculture Summit Africa (ASA) – a platform dedicated to increasing the value of agribusiness in Africa, held on Thursday, September 23, 2021. The event featured several panelists deliberating on the theme ‘Building a New Agro Order’.

The key focus was to address the need for advanced and mechanized farming methods to replace subsistence farming which is prevalent in many parts of Nigeria and Africa.

Speaking on the topic titled “Food Security; Building a Resilient Food Production System” Program Lead, Agriculture, Mastercard Foundation, Lois Sankey urged policy makers in the agricultural sector to enhance the sector through improved access to resources to make it more attractive to the youth because the subsistence approach does not hold much appeal for them.

She further emphasized that the agricultural sector if well managed could reduce the level of unemployment in the country by employing millions of youths along the value chain.

She explained that introducing forward-thinking end to end interventions will attract young people and will align with the vision of Mastercard Foundation’s Young Africa Works Strategy – which is to find solutions to the youth employment challenge and reduce poverty in Africa by creating access to dignified and fulfilling jobs for women and youth.

“Youth should be encouraged to enter agriculture by creating solutions around technology and tools that are labour efficient and would help boost production. This would be an effective way to curb youth apathy towards agriculture,” she stated.

She expressed her gratitude for the partnership between Mastercard Foundation and Sterling Bank Plc which is focused on helping youth and budding agricultural entrepreneurs access affordable finances for their businesses.

Key stakeholders at the summit expressed optimism that Nigeria can provide leadership in the region with a vibrant Agric-ecosystem.

10 October 2021
Kaduna Needs ₦140bn For Ranching, Says El-Rufai

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai has said that the state needs ₦140 billion for 14 ranches to fully settle herders and their families in the state.

He stated this on Tuesday while addressing journalists at the All Progressives Congress (APC) secretariat in Abuja, arguing that the measure is the most sustainable means to boost livestock production.

“It is not a matter of populist legislation or saying that tomorrow this or that; it is not the solution. We have taken a position as northern states governors and we are implementing that,” he said.

“We cannot do it overnight. We need billions of naira. This is just one ranch that is costing N10 billion. I have 14 grazing reserves in Kaduna State and I would like to convince them into ranching. Do I have 14 times N10 billion? I don’t have.”

“In my state for instance, we are developing a huge ranch at Damao to centralise the herders and that is the solution (on the) long term. But can it be done overnight? No. This project that we are doing will cost us about ₦10 billion. The CBN is supporting us with about ₦7.5 billion and [it] will take about two years to do.”

While El-Rufai maintained that ranching remains the recipe for the recurring farmer-herder conflict in the country, he described the anti-grazing law enacted by some of his colleagues as unrealistic.

According to him, although ranching is the ideal solution to the problem, it cannot be done overnight. He urged those pushing for the immediate ban on open grazing to exercise patience as time and resources are required to have ranches across the country.

“We will be settling about 1,500 Fulani herders’ families and [I] hope they will see that there are alternative ways of producing livestock instead of running up and down with cattle and going to people’s farms and causing all kinds of problems,” Governor El-Rufai added.

El-Rufai is among the latest high-profile personalities to have voiced concerns over the ban on open-grazing by governors – mostly those from the southern region.

The governors had met earlier in the year and banned the open grazing of livestock, giving a September 1 deadline for members to enact the anti-open grazing law.

While a good number of the states have enacted the law and others still in the process, the move has caused ripples across the nation. It has also been criticised by several government officials.

One of such persons who has faulted the Southern Governors’ Forum’s move is the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN) who said the development is unconstitutional.

“For example, it is as good as saying, perhaps, maybe, the northern governors coming together to say they prohibit spare parts trading in the north,” he said.

“Does it hold water? Does it hold water for a northern governor to come and state expressly that he now prohibits spare parts trading in the north?”

According to him, the governors should first amend the Constitution to prohibit open grazing before going ahead with their decision.

“If you are talking of constitutionally guaranteed rights, the better approach to it is to, perhaps, go back to ensure the Constitution is amended,” he added.

Despite Malami’s stance, the governors maintain that there is no going back on the ban, insisting it will be enforced to the fullest extent in the region.

“Mr Malami is advised to approach the court to challenge the legality of the laws of the respective states banning open grazing and the decision of the Southern Governors’ Forum taken in the interest of their people. We shall be most willing to meet him in court,” the Chairman of the forum and Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, said.

“The decision to ban open grazing stays. It will be enforced with vigour.”

22 September 2021
Agrolog, Mastercard Foundation Partner To Empower 60,000 Ginger Farmers in Nigeria

Agrolog General Services Limited in collaboration with the Mastercard Foundation will support 60,000 smallholder farmers in vulnerable indigenous ginger farming communities in Kaduna State.

The partnership will provide immediate materials, capacity, and structural support to boost ginger production and increase work opportunities for young people and adults in Nigeria.

Agrolog has been investing in the development of the ginger value chain since 2018.

The Managing Director of Agrolog Limited, Dr. Manzo Maigari, explained that in addition to improving yields of ginger from 18 metric tons per hectare (MT/ha) to 25MT/ha, the intervention will also create 60,000 on and off the farm jobs that will benefit the farmers and their communities by providing economic recovery, growth, and social stability.

According to Dr. Maigari, only smallholder farmers that belong to existing organized cooperatives within these local government areas can participate in the initiative.

Farmers who are selected will receive support ranging from training to farming implements that they can immediately use on their farms to cultivate ginger and food crops.

“The ginger value chain, if well harnessed can transform livelihoods. Ginger products such as ginger spices, powder, oil, medicine, tea, and tonic confectioneries hold massive opportunities for smallholder farmers, young people, and women across the entire value chain. From planting, harvesting, cleaning, cutting, processing, bagging, storage, and sales, this initiative offers a ray of hope to thousands of families in their local communities who have been further paralyzed by the pandemic. Now, they will be able to rely on a steady and sustainable income stream through ginger farming and processing,” Dr. Maigarisaid.

The partnership unlocks a multitude of benefits to farmers and the farming community, including mechanization, training and capacity building, farm mapping, standardization of measures, increased yields, improved processing, access to organized markets, and financial inclusion.

A participant in the initiative, Kakuta Irimiah, lauded the partnership between the Mastercard Foundation and Agrolog saying that the fertilizers and farm inputs they provided have helped to expand her business.

“The Agrolog fertilizer I received helped me to produce more bags of ginger. I used to produce 30 bags per hectare and now I produce between 50 to 100 bags. I have also received training on how to apply the fertilizers and how to construct drainages to prevent my farm from being washed away by erosion. Before this time, the colour of my produce was yellowish but now, it is greenish which is a sign of healthy and quality produce,” she said.

Speaking on the initiative, Chidinma Lawanson, Country Head, at the Mastercard Foundation said; “Our partnership with Agrolog is poised to drive immense production of ginger and create work opportunities for youth across the ginger value chain. It also will alleviate the impending threat to food security and livelihoods, which has worsened with the ongoing pandemic.”

Ginger farm

The intervention is being supported through the Mastercard Foundation COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program, which is targeted at offering timely support to mitigate the impending economic crises among the vulnerable indigenous communities.

The intervention is also aimed at averting further disruptions to the ginger supply chain because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The BUSINESS BELLS reports that Agrolog Limited is a newly established agribusiness company specialized in the production and trade of agricultural commodities, agro logistics, various agricultural investments and farm management.

The company seeks to entrench a culture of operational excellence that guarantees transparency from farm to table.

Agrolog has contrived partnerships through Innovation Platforms (IPs) that bring farmers and investors together enabling ecosystems that allow for collaborations that build farmers capacities, provision of quality inputs and standardization of practices that ensure high productivity and quality outputs.

The Mastercard Foundation works with visionary organizations to enable young people in Africa and in Indigenous communities in Canada to access dignified and fulfilling work. 

It is one of the largest, private foundations in the world with a mission to advance learning and promote financial inclusion to create an inclusive and equitable world.

The Foundation was created by Mastercard in 2006 as an independent organization with its own Board of Directors and management. 

12 September 2021
Nigeria Ranks Second Poorest In Global Food Affordability

A new report by a UK-based think tank, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), has placed Nigeria as the second poorest country in the world in terms of food affordability.

The report, which was compiled through a publicly available global cost-of-living database, Numbeo, was used in creating a “cost of food basics” analysis that compares the monthly minimum recommended spend on food per adult and monthly average wage in 107 countries across the world.

The minimum recommended amount of food is based on 12-14 basic items that together would account for 2,100 calories per adult per day which is the level recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for energy needs.

The Cost of Food Basics found that more than one year since the outbreak of COVID-19, there is vast disparity between countries in terms of the proportion of average wages needed to afford enough food.

The top 10 countries where basic food is least affordable are Syria, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Indonesia, Algeria, Iran and Uzbekistan.

Basic food is least affordable in Syria, where the minimum recommended monthly spend would account for 177 per cent of average wage income per adult, followed by Nigeria where 101 per cent of the average wage is spent on food.

Last month, a survey carried out by a news media in markets across the country showed that the cost of basic food items such as beans, tomatoes and rice had recorded worrying hikes of 253 per cent, 123 per cent and 51 per cent respectively within a year period.

A report last year by data firm Statista, pegged the average living wage in Nigeria at N43,200 which is 30.60 per cent higher than the minimum wage set at N30,000, a figure which several states are yet to meet up with.

10 August 2021
FG Enters Agreement With Benin Republic To End Rice Importation

The federal government and the Republic of Benin have entered an agreement to end the importation of rice across West African countries.

This agreement was announced at the end of a meeting between a delegation from Benin, the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) and Ibrahim Gambari, the chief of staff to the president, in Abuja on Tuesday.

The meeting was to solidify the agreements and tap from Nigeria’s experience in reviving rice production.

Representatives of RIFAN recently visited Cotonou, Benin capital, to sign a memorandum of understanding on how the association will help the country boost its local rice production.

The delegation was received by President Patrice Talon in his residential house in Cotonou along with his minister of agriculture and foreign affairs.

Addressing state house correspondents after the meeting, Atiku Bagudu, governor of Kebbi state, explained that the meeting was to advance ongoing talks between the two countries on how to replicate Nigeria’s rice farming programme in the Benin Republic.

“Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria met with the chief of staff to the president to progress the discussion which has been going on between them and the Benin Republic for the two countries to replicate the success of Nigeria’s rice farming programme in Benin, so that we can stop rice importation in West Africa in shortest possible time,” Bagudu said.

“This is a partnership within the framework of ECOWAS agreement and the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement and our brotherly relationship between President Muhammadu Buhari and President Patrice Talon who have the vision that we can be greater together.”

Speaking on what Nigeria intends to offer the Francophone country, Aminu Goronyo, national president of RIFAN, said: “Of course, they are our sister country, we are one and the same people and I think their president is ready to accept what we have used to achieve this success which is the government’s will because our success is related with the political will that this government has”.

“And that is exactly what they want to learn so that they will use the same approach to attain the successes they are seeing to come to us to learn more.”

During the delegation visit in Cotonou, Talon had said the closure of Nigerian borders served as an eye-opener and as such, the country was ready to work with Nigeria to stop the smuggling of rice.

The land borders were closed in August 2019 to curb the smuggling of hard drugs and arms and agricultural products from neighbouring West African countries.

TheCable’s analysis of the data provided by the Thai Rice Exporters Association showed the rice exports to neighbouring West African countries increased after the Central Bank of Nigeria announced that it would no longer provide forex for rice importation.

President Muhammadu Buhari ordered that the borders be reopened on December 16, 2020.

10 March 2021
Olam, Premier Flour, Others Benefit As CBN Releases 50,000mt Of Maize

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), through its anchor borrowers’ programme (ABP), has released 50,000 metric tonnes of maize to major players in the poultry value chain across the country.

The apex bank, in a statement, said the release is to forestall the pressure and reduce the activities of intermediaries (middlemen) in the Nigerian Maize market.

The beneficiaries of the maize release are Premier Flour Mills, Crown-Olam, Grand Cereals, Animal Care, Amobyn and Hybrid Feeds.

Others include Zartech, Wacot, Sayeed Farms, Pandagri Novum, Premium Farms, the south west, south-south, north west and north central chapters of the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN).

The CBN noted that the release had caused the maize market price to drop from N200,000 per metric tonnes to about N180,000 per metric tonnes while still anticipating that the current price will reduce.

“The current shortfall in the quantity of maize available in the market, that CBN is working on mitigating is attributed to activities of banditry, drought in some parts of the country last year, activities of hoarders and middlemen as well as insecurity around the major maize producing belt of Niger, Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and part of Kano states,” the statement read.

“As part of the Bank’s financing framework, the CBN facilitates the funding of maize farmers and processors through the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) Commodity Association, Private/Prime Anchors, State Governments, Maize Aggregation Scheme (MAS), and the Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS).”

In July 2020, the apex bank banned the sale of forex in the import and export (I&E) window to importers of maize into the country. According to the bank, the decision is part of efforts to increase local production, stimulate rapid economic recovery, safeguard rural livelihoods.

5 March 2021
2.9m Farmers Have Benefited From Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, Says Emefiele

The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, says 2.9 million farmers have cultivated 3.6 million hectares across 21 commodities under the bank’s anchor borrowers’ programme (ABP).

He was speaking on Tuesday, during the flag-off of the 2020 wet season harvest aggregation and 2020 dry season input distribution under the CBN-Rice Farmers’ Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) Anchor Borrowers’ Programme in Zauro, Kebbi state.

Emefiele said the bank under its 2020 wet season CBN-RIFAN partnership, financed 221,450 farmers for the cultivation of 221,450 hectares in 32 States.

“The North-West zone with 85,261 farmers that cultivated 120,218 hectares represented 38.5% in total number of farmers and 54.3% in total number of hectares financed,” he said.

“The rhetoric around neglect of previous years will remain part of our history and the best time to correct those mistakes is now and every stakeholder must contribute their quota to guarantee the realization of these national targets.

“Covid-19 and the associated lockdowns globally have shown that nations only export out of their reserves. Let us start building our own reserves now.”

The event featured the display of pyramids, which were rice harvests brought in by farmers in the state.

Celebrating the fifth anniversary of the ABP, Emefiele said the massive pyramids being launched in Kebbi was a confirmation of the positive outlook of the programme.

He also said the partnership between the CBN, the Kebbi state government and Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), was aimed at strategically complementing the economic sustainability plan (ESP) of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

In his remarks, Atiku Bagudu, governor of Kebbi, commended the CBN for its initiatives which has brought succour to the country in terms of food security, diversification and economic growth.

On his part, Aminu Goronyo, RIFAN president, expressed gratitude to Buhari for his vision that Nigeria must feed herself by producing what she eats and eating what she produces.

The Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, launched by President Muhammadu Buhari on November 17, 2015, is intended to create a linkage between anchor companies involved in the processing and small holder farmers (SHFs) of the required key agricultural commodities.

3 March 2021