Generating 1m jobs from domestic wheat production

Today, Nigeria’s wheat import is about 4 million metric tons per annum and the import is estimated to grow at an alarming rate of 5 percent per annum. At this rate, the country will be importing 10 million metric tons by 2030, spending $15 billion annually on wheat imports alone.

Consumption

Several factors explain the increased consumption of wheat, including high population growth, rapid rate of urbanisation, consumer preference for easy-to-prepare foods.

Today also, our young children have become hooked on noodles and pasta, all made from wheat. Even the older generation who use to eat pounded foods, traditionally made from yams and cassava, now eat pounded foods from wheat flour. There is an intense battle to shift the tastes of consumers away from our local foods to foods made from wheat. Such over-dependence on imported wheat will pose significant risks to Nigeria’s future growth. Nigeria must grow a lot more of its own wheat and reduce the national, economic and political risks from depending on other nations for our food supply.

ATA

This is why President Goodluck Jonathan launched the Agricultural Transformation Agenda. A key part of this agenda was the launch of the Wheat Transformation Agenda. The target of the wheat transformation is to increase national production from 300,000 metric tons to about 1.5 million metric tons per annum by 2017. The wheat transformation agenda will generate 1 million jobs in the rural areas of Nigeria over the next four years of the programme and generate over N42 billion in incomes annually for farmers and millers.

Production

This is not a mirage. A silent revolution is already happening on farms all across Northern Nigeria. This revolution is being sparked by the release of two high yielding improved wheat varieties, Norman Borlaug and Reyna-28, produced by International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in collaboration with our own Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI), Maiduguri. These varieties give average yield of five to six tons per hectare. In addition to high yields, these varieties have excellent milling and bread-making quality.

Distribution

We have begun massive distribution of these varieties to farmers through the Growth Enhancement Scheme and electronic wallet scheme. In the 2013/2014 wheat dry season, 9,143 farmers in eight Northern states (Kano, Jigawa, Kebbi, Zamfara, Borno, Yobe, Gombe, and Sokoto) each received improved seeds, at no cost, and two bags of fertiliser, at 50 percent percent subsidy, via their mobile phones.

Cultivation

A total of 2,500ha of wheat fields were cultivated in 2013. For the 2014/2015 wheat season, a total of 75,000ha will be cultivated by 75,000 farmers. The area under wheat production is expected to increase to 150,000ha by 2015/2016 dry season and to 300,000ha by 2016/2017 dry season. At the average yield of 5MT/ha, Nigeria will achieve its target of producing 1.5 million metric tons of wheat by 2017, and reduce wheat imports by 50 percent.

Technology

To ensure massive wheat production, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is collaborating with SG2000 on an aggressive technology transfer programme. Using funds from the wheat levy, we will support wheat farmers with processing equipment (500kg/hr milling machines), land water development, irrigation pumps, all at subsidised rates. We will also develop policy options to promote and protect domestic producers and processors.

The accelerated production of wheat all across the North-East and North- West regions of the country will create massive amounts of jobs, especially for the youth, and reduce insecurity in these regions.

I see the change in the lives of farmers of Kano.

GES

The Growth Enhancement Scheme has allowed close to 323,000 farmers in Kano to receive subsidised seeds and fertilisers. The numbers of farmers in Kano who benefited from the GES support increased from 72,575 in 2012 to 251,000 in 2013 – an increase of 553 percent.

The pattern we have seen in Kano is the same all across Northern Nigeria. In Kaduna, next door to Kano, the number of farmers benefiting from GES rose from 58,000 in 2012 to 416,000 in 2013 – an increase of 633 percent.

Taken together, the total number of farmers who benefited from GES in the North was 3.3 million in 2013, compared with 1.4 million in 2012. The three Northern regions represent 77 percent out of the total number of farmers who benefited in 2013 across the country.

The agricultural transformation agenda has changed the fortunes of the north, created millions of seasonal farm jobs and stemmed insecurity. Farmers, who used to migrate to the south to work as night guards are staying back on the farm. What a change!

We will sustain this change. The wheat revolution that is occurring all cross the north, especially in the north east and north west, will help to bring new prosperity and improve national security.

Let me therefore issue a strong warning to food importers and wheat millers. We will not allow you to undermine government effort to create jobs and ensure national security. You cannot worsen insecurity in Nigeria.

Bill

To ensure that Nigerian farmers are not turned into destitute by food importers, we will soon introduce a bill that will make it mandatory for wheat millers to buy our own local wheat and use it to substitute for some of the wheat being imported. Cassava flour and sorghum flour use in bread and confectionaries will also become mandatory.

OLUYINKA ALAWODE