The declaration of a state of emergency by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration and the effort by the Kano state government to partner private sector in the regard, is the focus of this piece by LEKAN OLASEINDE.
On July 20, 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared a state of emergency on food security in Nigeria. His declaration is regarded by analysts as the best policy pronouncement of a Nigerian president on agriculture since the amalgamation of North and South protectorates in 1914 to produce the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Tinubu’s declaration was timely as it came a month after the fuel subsidy withdrawal that brought unprecedented inflation and high cost of living in a country infamously projected as the world’s poverty headquarters. Undoubtedly, the current precarious nature of food insecurity results from over three decades of negligence and lackadaisical attention by past governments on this all-important sector, agriculture.
Budgetary allocations
Agriculture has little investment from state and federal governments over the years. For example, from 2000 to 2007, the federal government allocated 1.3% and 3.4% of its annual budget to agriculture. The combined expenditures of the national and 30 state governments in 2017 revealed that agriculture accounted for barely 1.8 percent of their overall yearly budget. As evidenced by recent years, the situation has deteriorated. Agriculture received 1.73% of the federal government’s annual budget in 2021. Oyo, Kwara, Borno, and Abia states allocated 3.6%, 3.0%, 4.64%, and 1.49% of their annual budgets, respectively. Only Kano state allocated 5%, the highest by a state.
Maputo Declaration/challenges
These allocations are less than 10% of the annual budget promised by the heads of the African Union government, tagged “2003 Maputo Declaration and 2014 Malabo Resolution.” Low public investment is just one of the impediments to agricultural development in Nigeria. Other challenges are low-level agricultural mechanisation, poor extension services with a ratio of one extension agent to between 7,000 and 10,000 farmers against the FAO recommendation of one extension agent to 500 farmers, and flawed and neglected rural infrastructure. As bad as these challenges are to food security, Nigeria’s demography exacerbates the situation.
A recent study indicates the average annual food production increase is 3.32%. In contrast, the population increases at the rate of 5.8 million people annually, an increase of 16,096 persons daily in 2023. Therefore, Tinubu’s emergency declaration on agriculture was not only timely and commendable but also the only weapon for countering the insecurity monster.
FG’s mandates
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Senator Abubakar Kyari, said during a press conference, that the presidential priorities were aligned with the ministry’s mandates and operations on Food Security, Economic Growth and Job Creation, Poverty Eradication and Inclusivity, and the creation of an enabling environment for individuals, groups, and the private sector to participate in governance and economic activities. He outlined immediate, short, medium, and long-term food security policies. Feelers from the field indicate appreciable progress with cultivating 118,670 ha of land out of the 123,000 hectares targeted for wheat production under federal government dry season farming, supported by the African Development Bank.
Partnership
Achieving food security in a country like Nigeria is arduous, and the federal government cannot do it alone. Constitutionally, agriculture is on the concurrent list, making it a joint and complementary business for federal and state governments. This constitutional provision is reinforced by the Right to Food Act, which empowers citizens to hold the government accountable if they cannot access and afford quality food. State governments must fulfil their responsibilities and participate in the food security agenda. They must adopt efficient, sustainable, business-like, and cost-effective initiatives to complement federal government’s efforts to achieve food security. In this case, the SAA-KSADP agricultural model becomes handy. What is the SAA-KSADP agricultural model?
KSADP model
The Kano State Agro-Pastoral Development Project (KSADP) is a multi-million-dollar agricultural development project funded by the Islamic Development Bank, Lives and Livelihoods Funds (LLF) and the Kano state government. The project was designed as a multifaceted food security, poverty alleviation, job creation, and conflict mitigation strategy between farmers and herders. The project is aimed at the sustainable development of livestock and crop-selected value chains. Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) serves as a technical partner supporting the government’s extension effort of enhancing agricultural productivity and competitiveness across the selected value chains through increased access to inputs, value addition, extension service delivery and agribusiness development. The designed project helped secure financial support, and provided robust technical support. It started project implementation in 2021 and will end in 2025. The project targets 450,000 smallholder farmers across the 44 local government areas of Kano state.
In the two and a half years of KSADP implementation in the state, SAA has successfully achieved more than 70% of the project targets in all components. Among the achievable milestones, the project has benefitted 366,000 farmers (81%), targeted 800 women on nutrition and income generation access, and achieved 91.5% (732 women). Similarly, the project succeeded in all the targets (100%) in establishing 3,615 demonstration plots of half a hectare in all the project sites across 44 LGAs. Yields of rice and maize increased on average from 2.3 and 2.8 tons per hectare to 6.4 and 6.8 tons per hectare, respectively. The performance of SAA in the project accomplishment is not a surprise, as SAA has proved to be different from other international NGOs.
SAA is a global initiative to fight hunger and poverty in Africa. It was created out of the intense discussion, negotiations, and strenuous effort of Mr Ryoichi Sasakawa (deceased), a first-class global multi-billionaire philanthropist; Dr Norman Borlaug (deceased), a Nobel Peace Prize winner; and President Jimmy Carter, former President of the USA. SAA came to Africa in 1986 and Nigeria in 1992. SAA has impacted over 20 million farmers across 18 states in Nigeria. The Sasakawa-KNARDA-KSADP Model has proved to be the laudable answer to food security in Nigeria, and the model is adaptable and scalable in any corner of this country. IsDB, its LLF, KNSG and SAA are veritable and potential supporters to make Nigeria achieve food security by replicating the KSADP model in any federation state. Here is a low-hanging fruit for states and the federal government to achieve the government security agenda.
