₦airaland Forum

Eko Ile: Let's be fair and jokes apart. You get credit based on your actions and services provided to the electorates and so far, there is just nothing meaningful to give GEJ credit for and if you have any, please share with us.

On the other hand, Lagos has hundreds of projects under construction all over the state so it's very easy for them to commission multiple projects within a week which means people are hard at work to deliver all over the state.

Every time you people insert GEJ into this kind of conservation, you are not helping him and in fact, you are setting him up for abuse and ridicule.

* Nigeria pushing ahead with reforms to failing farms

* Agriculture accounts for 40 pct of GDP, 70 pct jobs

* Oil discovery in 1960s saw farming wither

* Food crisis, economic pain ahead if reforms fail

By Joe Brock

SAULAWA, Nigeria, July 4 (Reuters) - Down a winding dirt track in this sleepy village in northern Nigeria lies a corn farm which looks much like the dozens that surround it. The difference is, this one is turning a profit.

"I can barely lift my 8-year-old. He's the fattest in the village," said Ibrahim Mustapha, 50, drawing laughter from his fellow farmers as he pretends to lift up his chubby son.

The Babban Gona or "Great Farm" project, in northern Kaduna state, is one of a handful where private investment is helping former subsistence farmers like Mustapha make profits for themselves and the companies backing them.

When President Goodluck Jonathan was elected two years ago, he pledged reforms that would transform the lives of tens of millions of farmers who live on less than $2 a day despite occupying some of Africa's most fertile land.

Oil remains the main source of foreign currency and state revenues, but agriculture is by far the biggest contributor to GDP, making up 40 percent of Africa's second largest economy.

With 170 million mouths to feed and a growing food import bill thanks to the disarray in the farming sector, agriculture ministry officials say there's no time to lose.

If productivity does not improve Nigeria could face a food crisis within a decade, its current account surplus would be wiped out and the credit worthiness of Africa's second biggest debt issuer would be under threat.

"If we did nothing, it would be a disaster," Agriculture Minister Akinwumi Adesina told Reuters in the capital.

"We don't eat oil, we don't drink it ... We cannot sustain the amount of money we use to import food," Adesina said, a Nigerian flag hanging behind his office chair.

In some cases, the imports substitute for things Nigerians are growing but can't get to market or lack the means to process.

The country is the second largest grower of citrus fruit in the world after China and yet it spends $200 million a year on imported fruit juice while its own produce rots, Adesina said.

It also produces 1.5 million tonnes of tomatoes annually of which 45 percent perish, while consumers spend $360 million on tomato paste imported from countries such as Italy and China.

CURING DUTCH DISEASE

To succeed, Adesina's reforms will need to reverse the inadvertent damage done to the sector by Africa's earliest and biggest oil and gas boom, which crowded out other commodities.

In the 1960s, Nigeria was the biggest exporter of peanuts in the world and had 27 percent of the palm oil trade. It remains one of the world's top cocoa growers, but production and bean quality have declined since their heyday in the 1970s.

While an elite allied to a series of military dictatorships grew rich on the spoils of the energy sector, millions of mostly subsistence farmers were given little or no help at all.

The result: Nigeria is now the world's second largest importer of rice and the biggest buyer of U.S. wheat, while much of its own fertile land lies fallow. A booming population has sent its food import bill rocketing to around $11 billion a year - equivalent to more than a third of the federal budget.

Agriculture also offers the best chance to cut unemployment, which feeds an Islamist insurgency in the north and oil theft in the south. Unemployment is 23 percent and youth unemployment double that, national statistics suggest.

"Poverty is the source of a lot of the insecurity problems we have. A hungry man is an angry man," Adesina said.

The minister plans to create 3.5 million new jobs in agriculture and boost food production by 20 million tonnes by 2015, the year of the next national election.

To achieve this, he wants to boost access to microfinance for farmers and draw in $10 billion of foreign investment into farming and food processing.

He has received tentative praise for early successes from foreign diplomats, bankers and aid agencies, but big agro-business projects have yet to take off.

Adesina took a corrupt fertiliser subsidy out of politicians' hands and now farmers are texted subsidy vouchers directly to their mobile phones so they can recoup from fertiliser sellers, a policy used in Kenya's farming reforms.

Seventy percent of farmers now receive subsidised fertiliser and seeds, compared with 11 percent under the corrupt programme previously run by state governments, Adesina said.

LONG ROAD AHEAD

Production of rice, cassava, wheat, sorghum, and corn are rising and cocoa, Nigeria's most important export crop, looks set to go up by more than a third this season.

In 2012, agriculture exports rose by 128 billion naira ($788 mln) and food imports fell by 850 billion, Adesina says.

Foreign investors such as food giant Cargill, seed company Syngenta, brewer SABMiller and Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote are planning to build everything from fertiliser plants to food processing factories.

Yet rice imports still soak up $7 million a day, while poor infrastructure and policy flip-flopping have in the past seen farming potential wasted. Farmers needs infrastructure to get goods to market -- and rural Nigeria's is as woeful as it gets.

Nigerian billionaire Dangote has pledged to spend $35 million on a tomato paste plant in the northern city of Kano and $45 million in Cross River state to process pineapple juice.

Adesina says he has received $8 billion in commitments but such promises are often not kept in Nigeria. Cargill and SABMiller told Reuters they are only "considering" investing.

"I would estimate that no more than one dollar of investment actually occurs for every $100 of announced commitments," said Fola Fagbule, an Africa-focused investment banker in Lagos.

A central bank initiative has issued guarantees on around 25 billion naira of agriculture loans since it began in July last year, lifting lending to the sector to around 4 percent of total loans, from 1.5 percent at end-2009, the bank says.

The World Bank is putting in $100 million into agriculture, while British and U.S. aid projects pump in tens of millions.

This barely scratches the $10 billion Adesina says the sector needs by 2015. Smallholders say banks still don't lend to them, while the scheme doles out cheap money to big firms.

"We've heard it all before and I have never seen it get better," says Alhaji, a farmer wrestling with two scrawny long-horned cows dragging a rusty plough through a field.

"I have 15 children and ... we barely get enough food to feed ourselves," he said.

BEARING FRUIT?

A few success stories nonetheless give cause for optimism.

Farmer Mustapha says he made $1,350 per hectare from his harvest after paying back private firm Doreo Partners, which runs the Babban Gona project, compared to previous years where he might earn $200 per hectare.

"Now I want to grow my farm, I have so much space I never used. Now I will send my children to school," he said, while behind him mostly unused farmland stretched to the horizon.

Doreo is working with 600 farmers. It has ambitious plans to boost this to 500,000 by 2020, and 5 million by 2030.

"I know it sounds ambitious but it's been done elsewhere and Nigeria has so much easy-to-reach potential," said Kola Masha, the company's head.

Masha is attempting to emulate giant food cooperatives like CHS in the U.S. or India's dairy franchise Amul, who make huge profits while helping millions of smallholder farmers.

He gives farmers high-quality fertiliser, seeds, equipment and expertise on credit to massively increase their yields, while negotiating with firms like Nestle to buy the produce at higher prices than the farmers could get themselves.

Farmers working with Masha, he said, are using 40 times more fertiliser than neighbours who could never afford that amount.

"It's early days but I'm more optimistic than I've ever been," he said.

otokx: Keep up with the lies,

I joined nairaland in 2005 by the way and the problem is not from any village, power supply in the UNIPORT area has actually decreased this 2013 compared to 2012.

seankay: @billante,ask your dad! Oh I forgot,ask your mom who your dad is! Bleep retardeen and his followers

seankay: Bleep y'all supporting Jonathan,the most clueless of all presido! 1 idoita evn said he s the best ever #smh# I guess its cos dey are feeding u wif crumbs outta their loots.Do you even know you deserve better and you might have being of a better financial status if we have had good leaders.Yar'adua brought an end to the militant ish in Niger/Delta and he also brought an abrupt end to Boko haram during his time.In this retardeens govt,we are presently experiencing the highest level of insecurity(BOko haram,omabtse.....) No jobs for graduates,corruption on the high as usual,electricity is shit,no improvement....So how is he trying? I spit and lay a curse on our greedy rulers and greedy supporters!

berem: Seconded! Time to re- enforce and wait for them to come spew their usual lies on this forum.

Sincere 9gerian: Great news. All we need now is some peace for more investments to flow in. Who will tell Boko Haram to give peace a chance?

The federal government has attracted over $25 billion in investment, including the $20 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Power China and the Ministry of Power to generate for Nigeria 20,000 megawatts of electricity, following President Goodluck Jonathan’s trade mission to China last week.

According to Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, during the visit, Bauchi State signed MoU with China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) for the provision of 120 megawatts of electricity at an estimated cost of $260 million.

However, Aganga, at the weekend, in China, described the deal with Power China as most ambitious, noting that it was the highest power agreement the federal government signed with any international firms, adding that government had earlier had similar deals with General Electric, Electrobras of Brazil and Siemens.

“If you compare that (to earlier agreements) that is the biggest MoU we have signed on power. And I must say that Power China is the largest power company in China and a major player in the power sector. If you look at that and complement it with the fact that we signed a 10,000 megawatts agreement with General Electric; with Electrobras in Brazil and with Siemens, you can see that the future...it won’t take too long for us to address the issue of power,” he said.

During the visit, First Bank of Nigeria Plc also signed an agreement with China Development Bank for the provision of $100 million facility meant to be dispensed as loans to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria.
Aganga described the loan as very important because SMEs is the powerhouse of any economy, including that of Nigeria.

“SME is a major economic drive, especially in a developing country like Nigeria. Today we have about 17 million SMEs in our country, employing close to 32 million people. So when we talk about job creation, the real sector to focus on is SME. That $100 million is made available through First Bank,” he added.

Other MoU signed include those between Ladol and China Offshore Oil Engineering Corporation (COOEC) to develop a dry dock facility in Lagos and Bayelsa States and between China Great Wall and a Nigerian company for the manufacturing of transformers in Nigeria in addition to the agreement signed between the Ministry of Aviation with China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) for the construction of four international terminals at the four major airports in Nigeria.

Besides these agreements, Aganga said there were other discussions that the federal government had with investors that did not lead to the signing of MoU, adding: “But there was a clear understanding and MoU will be signed very soon. One of such is with Seco and Pacific Energy. Pacific Energy is the largest in terms of coal to power and you would know that in China most of the sources of their power is coal.

"They are also committed to working with us to generate power from coal and their commitment is to generate 5,000 megawatts of power at the cost of, in today’s terms, about N5 billion. They are also planning to set up their regional office in Abuja.”
The minister explained that the mission to China accomplished things for Nigeria in three areas: politics, diplomacy and economic.

“There is the political angle; there is the diplomatic angle and the economic angle, which is about investment. The engagement was at the highest level. It is very, very important that the engagement was at the presidential level. Of course, the first major item was the bilateral discussion and the signing of about five agreements with the Chinese government. The bilateral discussion covered a lot of diplomatic, economic and political issues,” he added.

Aganga described the China mission as the most successful because of the large turnout of investors who were willing to come and do business in Nigeria, adding that Chinese companies already doing business in Nigeria travelled to China to meet with Jonathan, including CCECC which already has 10 projects in Nigeria worth $10 billion.

ewet: Who the hell is this guy and where did you fall out from? What has the nonsense you just spewed here got to do wilt Odumakin's statement.

Did Bamidele complain to you tht he is unsettled in his party and if he were to be aggrieved did he take the law into his hands by going against is party.

Bros abeg go siddon and let the stuff u hav bin smokin die out b4 u make any comment.

Bliss4Lyfe: Suppose render of Akanu Ibiam International Airport and the Enugu Airport.

frankyychiji: monkey!

wirinet I disagree with Odumakin on this Amaechi issue. From the begining we all know Amaechi is a very stobborn man, he is a man of his own principles and has never been shown to be a yes man to anybody. That was why OBJ and Odilli conspired to to deny him his lawful nomination for governorship, which he won back at the supreme court. Jonathan cannot think Amaechi would change overnight and become a yesman to him or his madam..

Iykeponti: God bless ma state Anamabra, also bless ma home town Nnewi-umudim... Well done Peter, just try nd creat jobs for ur brothers n sisters... Dis gona help reduce d crime in our land. We r getting there gradually gradually

sixteen08: Min of petroleum nko??

Abagworo: The voice of 160million Nigerians can never be dwarfed by one man and his wife.