Agriculture: Kyari’s Urgent Task

After a long wait, President Bola Tinubu appointed Abubakar Kyari as Minister of Agriculture and Food Security. Gilbert Ekugbe, writes on the need for the minister to hit the ground running.

There is no better time than now that the United Nations has warned of global food shortages as a result of global warming and climate change effects on food production across the globe for Nigeria to have a proactive Minister of Agriculture.

The appointment of Mr. Abubakar Kyari as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture is also coming at a time when food prices have continued to skyrocket in the midst of declining purchasing power of households across the nation. According to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which measures the rate of change in prices of goods and commodities, food price inflation rose to 26.98 per cent year-on-year.

Kyari comes to office with public expectation that he would outperform his predecessors and attain food security in Nigeria.

Already, stakeholders in the agriculture sectors have their hopes high on him to take the Nigeria’s food sector to the next level. It is expected that the Minister of Agriculture must address acute needs and root causes of hunger, poverty and malnutrition, strengthen prosperity and security by demonstrating a commitment to the agriculture sector.

Certainly, his focus should be on ways to move food products from one place to another, especially in times of crisis; promote a comprehensive and unified response to the challenge of achieving global food security; reaffirm the vital role of trade to improve global food security; commit to take concrete steps to facilitate trade and improve resilience of markets for food and agricultural products and agricultural inputs and minimise trade distortions when applying emergency measures, in conformity with World Trade Organisation (WTO) disciplines.

Feeding a growing population, providing a livelihood for farmers and protecting the environment are some of the key challenges to be tackled by any serious government to achieve sustainable progress in agriculture development.

Reacting to the appointment, the National President, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr. Kabir Ibrahim, in a chat with THISDAY, said that the decision of President Tinubu to rename the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) as Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS) speaks volumes of the administration’s desire to make Nigeria food secure within a short time.

Ibrahim noted that appointing relatively young people to drive the quest for the attainment of food security is also a step in the right direction. He pointed out that the myriad challenges of insecurity, flooding largely due to climate change, inadequate finance, challenges of inadequate inputs, low level of mechanisation and reliance on rain-fed production, lack of processing, absence of seamless distribution of produce and its storage as well as consumption are obvious threats to the nation’s food system while calling for synergy among all MDAs with cross-cutting responsibilities.

“The Ministries of Water Resources, Defence, Environment and Ecological management, Aviation, Transportation, Power, Finance, Trade & Investment as well as the CBN, Works and the new Ministry of Housing and Urban Development must work lockstep with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to fast track the attainment of food security in Nigeria.

“Above all the most critical stakeholders, the farmers comprising youth and women among them need to be incentivised to work assiduously to scale their productivity for any rapid attainment of food security. A periodic monitoring and evaluation of all policy implementation by Mr. President is absolutely necessary to ensure success in the effort to attain food security,” he averred.

The president of AFAN said that the nexus between food security and economic stability is an ‘absolute’ for Nigeria’s progress, especially in these challenging times, while commending the Tinubu-led administration for the appointment of relatively young cabinet members.

“We implore him to closely monitor their performances in implementing the policies of the administration. Any appointee found performing below average, perpetrating inequity or promoting corruption should be promptly removed or reassigned but anyone performing creditably well should be publicly acknowledge and adequately applauded,” he urged.

On his part, the Chief Executive Officer, the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, highlighted the pathways to agricultural development for the minister. Yusuf said that the minister should focus on enabling legislation to guarantee and protect private sector investment in agriculture, strengthen and streamline mandates of agricultural research institutes towards demand driven research and extension and involve private sector, NGOs and communities in the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of government agricultural projects.

He also called for the provision of favourable policy environment to enhance private sector investment in research for agriculture and food security such as tax holiday, favourable tariff regime on agricultural implements and other inputs and creation of strategic marketing boards and launch of sustained capacity development programmes.

Yusuf also stated the urgent need for reforming existing legislation and introduction of new laws especially on land ownership/tenure, water rights and farmer organisations; reduction of post-harvest losses through expansion of storage facilities and creation of strategic storage infrastructure towards food security; increased export earnings through food processing and acceleration of agro-industrial linkages to diversify the economy and boost development of other sectors.

“A number of high impact opportunities have been identified across the agricultural value chain. Research and Development initiatives, accelerated mechanisation and irrigation programmes, use of drones, improved farming techniques and extension programs to increase productivity,” he stated.

The National President, National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), Mr. Ojo Ajanaku, said that the minister must prioritise efforts on provision of good storage facilities in the constituencies, make available window for farm inputs that will reach farmers directly involved in production and not the office farmers with attendant affordable prices, stressing the need for the federal government to support local production of agro chemicals that will be within the reach of farmers.

“Infrastructure development essentially, building of roads and bridges to facilitate easy access to the farming communities is vital, the federal government should also develop strong capacity building programmes around farming businesses. In particular, capacity building in the area of weather forecast. Price guarantee programmes that will protect the farmers from losing out on prices is another area that the minister should focus on,” he advised.

For the development of cashew industry, Ajanaku urged the minister to support cashew farmers with provision of input for the maintenance and rejuvenation of existing cashew plantation; enforce the ban on foreigners from farm gates; support NCAN with mechanism for monitoring and enforcing standards in weighing and quality to avoid cheating of farmers by unscrupulous buyers and traders while also support the holistic development of policy in the cashew value chain for proper and guided development.