Despite the much touted e-wallet scheme, the truth is that any amount expended through agriculture can be likened to a ‘security vote’ which is difficult to be quantitatively measured. For instance, if the Ministry of Works says it constructed a kilometre of road in a named location for a known amount, it is easy to detect misinformation if any. But what if the Ministry of Agriculture states that 1.5 million farmers benefitted from any of its schemes? Can anybody go from house to house, within this space called Nigeria, to take record of the exact farmers that benefitted? As a result of this anomaly, this sector, both at the state and federal level, have been milked dry and farmers have automatically been bidden ‘goodnight’.

As campaigns reach its peak, the 70% of Nigerians who are farmers must ask a critical question before they choose sides and the question is this: “We are already asleep. Does this person have what it takes to wake us from this slumber?”

To an informed mind, most of the achievements of this present government on the area of agriculture exist only on books; not in reality. As usual, our leaders must use every method in, on, under and beside the books to spin lies and attempt to hoodwink all the people, all the time. Overwhelmed by the seeming enormity and intractability of the problems bedevilling the agricultural sector in this country, it is germane to posit that Nigerian farmers have simply suffered a decimation, to use the words of an European-American writer, Ayn Rand.

According to FAO 2011 statistics, Nigeria has a total land area of 91,077,000 hectares with an agricultural area of 76,200,000 hectares. In simple terms, about 83.7% of the land in Nigeria is arable, out of which less than half is currently under cultivation, mostly in subsistence form. Not only do we have vast amounts of arable land, we also have favourable weather for year-round cultivation of crops. Unfortunately, the country still spends well over N1.3 trillion per annum on the importation of foodstuffs, including N356 billion currently spent on importing rice annually and N635 billion spent on wheat imports. Sadly, these are all products that can be grown locally and if managed properly, can be exported in the near future. A nation that can’t feed itself is one that takes its farming population for granted and for such, implosion is imminent.

Nowadays, the agricultural sector has been milked dry and denigrated to a career of the poor and the old. Instead of creating wealth with agriculture, Nigerians are now managing poverty with it. Nigeria is seriously bent on plying the route of Haiti which around 1800 were the world’s richest colony; an export factory which produced almost two-thirds of the world’s coffee and almost half of the world’s sugar, but today are among the poorest countries.

Israel, on the other hand, is the poster child for a nation that has turned the odds in its favour agriculturally. More than half its land is desert and the climate is unsuitable for agriculture, yet it’s a world leader in agricultural technologies and a major exporter of fresh produce. Only 20% of Israeli land is arable yet it produces 95% of its nutritional requirements.

Also, the United States of America has continuously embarked on policies that have bettered the lives of farmers in that region, making the country able to feed itself, while excesses are exported either to earn foreign exchange or as aid to third world countries. As of the last census of agriculture in 2007, there were well above 2.2 million commercial farms in America, covering an area of 922 million acres, averages of 418 acres per farm. Apart from various credits and subsidies, the government went ahead to fix the minimum wage of a farmer to be $9.12 per hour. On this premise, the height of sponsorship and recognition American government gave to agricultural research cannot be overemphasized. Recent studies indicated that every US dollar spent by the US on agricultural research produces $9 worth of added food in developing countries.

Remorselessly, it is goodnight to farmers whenever monies meant for food production is cornered by corrupt individuals; it is goodnight to farmers whenever communities look down on their farming population; it is goodnight to farmers whenever parents and guardians discourage their wards from embarking on any agriculturally related disciplines; it is goodnight to farmers whenever we welcome development at the expense of an acre of land meant for food production; it is goodnight to farmers whenever a government has no clear plans for agricultural development; it is goodnight to farmers whenever a government invests on cassava and leaves waterleaf growers to their fate; and it is goodnight to farmers when a government neither invests on agricultural research nor encourages it in whatever ways possible.

In the same way, farmers dim their lamps and go to bed whenever they allow their various farmers’ associations to be converted to an offshoot of a political party, hijacked by ‘political farmers’ who had never been to farm since the day of their birth. In essence, they fall prey only when they refuse to seize what is theirs through whatever means possible.

Be that as it may, there are still some embers that still burn in our agricultural furnace: Presently, Nigeria is the leading producer of cassava, yam and cocoyam in the world. Information indicates that Nigeria’s cassava production is by far the largest in the world accounting for more than 20% of global output. As of 2011, Nigeria was the 3rd largest producer of palm oil with approximately 2.3 million hectares under cultivation. Until 1934, Nigeria was the world’s largest producer of palm oil until that opportunity was seized by Indonesia and Malaysia who together earned US$40 billion from that industry alone in 2012.

Nigeria is the 3rd largest producer of sweetpotato behind China and Uganda; the 4th largest producer of groundnut behind China, India and US; and was once the biggest poultry producer in Africa though its corporate poultry output has drastically reduced from 40 million birds to about 18 million. But it is high time we moved from just being the largest producers to being the largest exporters and these requires much more than shear labour of the farmer. It requires government interest.

As these embers still remain red and hot, it is necessary for all hands to be on deck to raise food production to the heights that its potentials indicate in Nigeria. We need a government that will make the sweat and shear efforts of farmers count. Agriculture has been the highest non-oil contributor to our revenues and is the buffer against the intermittent economic shocks currently occasioned by disruptions in crude oil prices. And if the attitude of the government in this sector can change for the better, then, out of the rubbles shall bear a new dawn.

• Orji Iheanyi is a political analyst, a seasoned agriculturist, a consultant agronomist and a Ph.D student of Plant Breeding and Genetics in one of the federal universities in Nigeria. He can be reached at orjilla@gmail.com