The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) FADAMA development Project Coordinator, Mr Salisu Danladi, in this interview with JOHN OBA, discloses that the FCT is targeting at about 250 to 300 farmers for cassava cultivation.
What do you aim to achieve with your Cassava cultivation programme in the FCT?
The FADAMA development project additional financing is a programme that started way back in the 1990s first phase where the focus was on development of irrigation infrastructure mainly on water lifting technology and for ramping of dry season production along the line within the period of implementation, it was discovered that the arraignment for implementation was not addressing the immediate and precise needs of farmers as a result the implementation strategy was adjusted and the concept of community driven development (CDD) was introduced.
And this paradyn-shift means that the farmers were now placed in the driver’s seat and capacities were built to empower the farmer to be able to identified resources and opportunities within his immediate environment and exploit such opportunities and resources for his immediate gains to enhance productivity and income.
This brought about the birth of the second national FADAMA Development Project (FADAMA 2) in 2004 to 2008. And with the farmers on the driving seat, the project essentially as a facilitator to help the farmers to do an appraisal of his community or environment, the potentials and to identify constraints and proffer solutions to solving such constraints with the help of the project facilitator team. Now that is in the aspect of capacity building that I mentioned earlier on.
With that the farmers was empowered to be able to develop a planning document called the Local Development Plans. This document encompasses the needs of the farmers in terms of inputs, technical advice, infrastructure that would facilitate ease of movement of farms produce, the farm size as well as other things that would be supporting their productivity and income generation activities. And every step of the program implementation, the farmers must participate. There was no room for any social disparity or segregation, everybody were been carried along to create equal opportunity in the process.
At the end of FADAMA 2, it was observed that the project had achieved a substantial percentage in terms of all the key indicators that measured the success of otherwise of the project, so it was rated as highly satisfactory. Then the government of Nigeria and the World Bank agreed to continue the project, this brought about the third FADAMA development project on the same platform, the same design, objectives and implementation arraignment.
Now with the benefit of hindsight from the second phase, the third FADAMA taking off was an easy thing, however, this phase covers the 36 states and the FCT as against the 12 states that were covered in the second phase under the World Bank financing and six from the African Development Bank, so in total 18 states were covered in the second phase. The third phase now increase the participation of farmers across the country. Challenges that arose in this third phase were easily overcome with the handholding and pair review mechanism put in place.
So by 2011, 2012, the then government introduced the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA). It was more or less a political programme set up to achieve certain objectives. There was no appropriation for it, so the government approached the World Bank to source for financing and they were advised that the process would be cumbersome and time consuming for the government to go through the process to getting the fund, it was advised that the government took at the ongoing project under the agricultural portfolio and see which one could carry the project, so FADAMA was found to be the most suitable platform that could launch ATA.
And additional financing was sort to the tone of $200 million which was immediately granted because banks believed in the project, that is why the issue of cassava prominently features. The ATA has identified some staple crops which government felt that Nigeria was wasting substantial amount on importation of which include cassava, rice, sorghum. And Nigeria had the comparative advantage for the production of these commodities yet we were importing them.
On that note the government felt Nigeria as a leader in cassava production globally with the least utilization, have the need to develop the value chains fully to ensure that all the derivable in terms of utilization of cassava would have been made and even rise the level of the value addition to meet international standard so that the products or bye-products could be exported to earn foreign exchange.
And for us in FCT, when we express our interest to participate in the additional financing coming from the parent project of FADAMA 3, we indicated that we have comparative advantage for cassava production among other crops and it was granted. Because if you go through the rural area of the FCT, you will discover that farmers grow cassava but the way and manner these farmers grow their cassava indicate that there are lots of gaps that needs to be filled in terms of choice of varieties, planting method and other agronomic practices. The yield was nothing to show for the efforts the farmer were making.
Average yield were between 12 to 15 tons per hectares whereas cassava can have up to 25 to 35 tons per hectare. Therefore the earnings compare to the investment was not commensurate, that was what brought about the need to look how to help the farmers to make maximum benefits from production of cassava because this is both food security and commercial crop that can generate income for the farmers.
As we are talking today, we have about 110 farmers partnering with us to cultivate one hectare each because that is the requirement of the project. This is 110 hectares that would be put under construction. At this level we are not doing development, but business. We want people who want take agriculture as business, who want to invest in the sector with plans, target and have project of their incomes.
If you are expecting more farmers to participate, what is the maximum, you can accommodate in FCT?
We are aiming at about 250 to 300 farmers for cassava though we have other commodities like rice, sorghum.
What are the modalities or standard you expect these farmers to meet?
Farmers interested in participating must join a cooperative group of minimum of ten people. They must be registered by the relevant authorities, then they would go to any commercial bank of their choice and open a group account, then they would consult our facilitators in the project office where they would be shown how to prepare business plan, that encompass records, membership of the group in terms of people that constitute the group, their gender. They would indicate the crops of their choice and if possible identify an off taker and also they must have their land. That is each member should have one hectare in one place.
Why do you restrict it to one per people? What about if someone can handle more than one, what happened?
We are restricting it to one because this is both a learning and a doing phase for the farmers. The labour available to them for proper land preparation was inadequate, the variety that they need to have good yield is not accessible or available to them. The other complementary inputs like fertilizer and other agrochemicals are also not accessible. So when they are asked to do as much as they can, we may be going out of the scope of the target group.
We are targeting groups of farmers who on the lower rung of the poverty line to come up to the line that they would not suffocate under the poverty burden. These are the people we are targeting, and when you look at their landholding generally, is less than one hectare. So giving them that one hectare is just right and is the best they can handle for now. If they learn the appropriate technology and all the other complementarities they need to go along with to make the whole, with the income, the can now increase subsequently because they would have learnt the necessary skills required to better manage and implement a larger farmers.
In the FCT, are there plan to assist these farmers with provision of tractors, off takers where some may not have?
The project will support those who have indicated interest with inputs, tractors, technical skills and link them up with both reliable agro input dealers and off takers, individual or corporate entities. The project is composed of six components, we have the agricultural input support and advisory service component, which is mainly concern with technical skill of farmers as well as linking the farmers with agro-dealers that they can buy quality input such as seedling, fertilizers, chemicals, pesticides, herbicides.
Now for the one hectare we agreed that farmers should cultivate, a budget is prepared, how much seeds, or seed cuttings or seedlings required to plant one hectare, the kilogram of fertilizer required will be determined, other inputs needed will be aggregated and slipped into two, the farmer will pay 50% and the project will pay 50%.
Now for the land preparation, one hectare to plow, harrow and where necessary, ridged, is already established. However, now that they have cluster of lands, they can negotiate for cheaper rate, then the price per unit will then be lower. On that, they would also bring 50% of the cost and the project will pay 50%. The buck of the production cost will be support by the project to the tune of 50%. The others are assets such as simple working tools for them to manage the farm, protective clothing, and sprayers, they would pay 20% of those ones. And when it becomes obvious that there are no infrastructure like feeder roads and there are many groups in such location and the road leading to such place is not good, the project intervenes to do the feeder roads and the farmers will pay 20%.
What is the project expectation at the end?
The objective is to ramp up production of cassava and also develop the value chain in terms of value addition so that cassava is produced in large quantities and also process into usable products that can be consume or used for industrial purposes and the farmers earning income and make profit to enhance his livelihood and that of others and can remain in farming as a business man.
Also the farming population in the country are aging and there are need for replacement, and we cannot get a replacement population except the venture or enterprise is attractive and to make it attractive, it must be rewarding or paying.
But are there sensitization programme to make potential farmers aware of this programme?
We have sensitization machinery on ground, we have project facilitators who work directly with the farmers to enable them appreciate their environment, see the opportunities and constraints, and come up with a business plan. They work with the farmers all over the territory. In addition, in each area council we have desk officers who are also responsible for their specific area. We also undertake visits to various communities to meet with farmer, tradition rulers and from time to time, we engage the media. Also FADAMA has become an household name.
Any peculiar challenges?
There are, the poverty level is very bad and in most cases farmers are unable to come up with their counterpart fund or their beneficiary contribution as at when due so that impacts negatively on the implementation. Sometimes, it is late before they are able to get their contribution, at times the season is almost getting out of hand, and that affects productivity. In some cases, they are not even able to come up with their contribution at all, it reduces the number earlier projected to participate and it also remove that factor of additional productivity and total contribution to food security and production.
After however, we are trying to make the payment more flexible, so that they could pay part of the initiate take off and then enter into agreement with their off-takers to argument their other part and they would pay back at the harvest time. Sometimes, it is not the off takers that provides the argumentation but the input dealer because they are engaging him directly.
Also at the official level, sometime our counterpart funds often do not come as at when due, this also imparts negatively on the successes we expect to record. Also issues of land accessibility for the farmer groups pose serious challenges.
With the problem of post-harvest losses, are there plans on ground to prevent this in the FCT?
We have post-harvest losses because of lack of appropriate technology and market. Sometimes the farmer doesn’t know when to harvest their crops, some harvest too early which will result in the crops being unripe and then moist and would decay rapidly or some delay harvesting and some of the crops become over ripe and start chartering. So we are trying to build the technical capacity of the farmers for them to know when exactly to harvest and how to harvest efficiently.
The market has been established and the buyer waiting for farmers and most of the off takers are involved in the routine advisory services that the farmers received, so the issue of post-harvest losses is going to be reduced to the barest minimum. This is the advantage of the development of the value chains, every actor on the chain is actively involved and they know what they are expecting from the proceeding.
