DISTRIBUTION OF MOTORCYCLES IN SUPPORT OF EXTENSION AGENTS’ MOBILITY OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES IN NIGERIA

DISTRIBUTION OF MOTORCYCLES IN SUPPORT OF EXTENSION AGENTS’ MOBILITY OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES IN NIGERIA

Wed, Feb 19, 2014

Today marks another major milestone in the drive of President Goodluck Jonathan to transform the agriculture sector.

The agriculture sector in Nigeria is witnessing significant changes. We have ended the era of agriculture as a development program, and shifted to agriculture as a business. And the approach is working. Our Growth Enhancement Scheme is working and impacting the lives of millions of farmers. Within two years, the growth enhancement scheme reached 6 million genuine farmers and this has improved the food security of 30 million persons in rural farm households.

The impact on food production has been significant as well, as our farmers produced an additional 15 million metric tons of food within two years. This is over 70% of the food production target we set for 2015. Farmers growing cash crops are being supported all across the country, whether growing cocoa, oil palm, cotton or cashew, farmers have never seen a better time when government resources are sharply focussed on them. Cocoa farmers are being provided with 114 million seedlings of high yielding cocoa varieties, which will allow us to double our cocoa production. We have provided 9 million sprouted nuts of oil palm seedlings to farmers growing oil palm. From the North, South, East and West, the agricultural transformation agenda is creating wealth, reviving hope and lifting millions of our farmers out of poverty.

Let me state clearly, that the support of the State governments in partnership with the Federal Government has been crucial for the successes being achieved. We are grateful to the state governors for their continued support and partnership.

Despite the gains that we have achieved, there is still much to do. We must continue to expand the access of farmers to better agricultural technologies, for sustainable increases in agricultural productivity. For this to happen requires an efficient and farmer-responsive agricultural extension system.

The agricultural extension system in Nigeria collapsed in the 1980s, shortly after the structural adjustment programs. The Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs), which formed the backbone of the extension system, worked well before the structural adjustment period. The Agriculture Extension and Research Liaison Service (AERLS) in Zaria used to be a first rate institution that disseminated extension service information to farmers, through pamphlets, radio and other avenues. With the end of the World Bank support for the ADPs, the extension system spiralled downwards. The ADPs ran into difficulties due to lack of access to financial resources to support their operations.

The performance and hence the effectiveness of our agricultural extension service, had been seriously impaired by poorly trained staff, lack of funding to pay for field extension activities, lack of synergies with donor supported projects and use of predominantly top-down, non-participatory approaches. The programs were also heavily weighted in favour of male farmers leaving women and youth with little support relevant to their needs. And yet agricultural extension is the prime vehicle for bringing technological innovations to farmers for sustainable development and improved quality of life. The extension system needs to be rapidly upgraded to serve the emerging needs of the agriculture sector, as agriculture as a business takes hold.

 

Our farmers face increasingly complex challenges in today’s rapidly changing food, fibre and agricultural markets. New demands imposed by supermarkets and consumers, stringent environmental regulations, high demands for grades and standards, require farmers to be better informed and supported. The extension system needed today is not just to produce more food. Farmers need to be supported to use the right kinds of seeds, fertilizers, meet maximum residue levels in food commodities, improve food handling, storage, packaging and marketing of produce. As food chains become increasingly complex, food safety standards are being strictly enforced in local, regional and global markets. What is needed today is a highly knowledgeable extension service, that able to support the farmers, from the farm, to the mill and to the market. We need market-informed agricultural extension workers, not the traditional agronomists that used to dominate extension services.

 

Extension workers must be equipped to help link farmers more effectively and responsively to domestic and international markets, to enhance crop diversification, to couple technology transfer with other services relating to input and output markets, to view agriculture as part of a wider set of rural development process that includes enterprise development and non-farm employment; and build linkages between farmers and other agencies.

 

This is why we launched the Agricultural Extension Transformation Agenda. Our goal is to bring to the service of our farmers the best of agricultural extension approaches, building on global best practices. This vital farmer support system is imperative to our success to achieve food and nutrition security, wealth and job creation and indeed to make Nigeria a major player in global food markets. Our goal is to put in place a knowledge-based, demand-responsive, pluralistic, market-oriented and ICT-driven participatory agricultural extension service for Nigeria.

 

In line with global best practices, we realized if we were really going to effect lasting change, we had to revamp and institutionalize the extension service. Since independence, Nigeria had never had a Federal Department of Agricultural Extension. This has made it difficult to coordinate and streamline agricultural extension operations across the country, leading to multiplicity of disjointed efforts and duplications. We have changed that.

 

I am pleased to say that Nigeria’s first Federal Department of Extension has now been established to provide the much needed impetus for leadership, coordination, monitoring and quality assurance to drive the transformation of extension delivery at the grassroots by the states, local governments and private agricultural advisory service providers.

 

Our goal is to retrain frontline extension staff those at the critical extension agent-farmer interface. In the past, extension workers had very limited opportunities for regular training and up-dating for effective job performance. We will now strengthen the linkages between extension, education and research institutions to ensure a seamless and constant flow of innovative technologies and practices, so that farmers can benefit from all of our upstream research and development activities.

 

But to do this, we must equip our extension workers. Access to mobility is one of the most limiting constraints to the performance of agricultural extension workers. It is important that we give them the tools, knowledge and skills to actually reach their customers – farmers in remote rural areas.

 

To further revive the extension service, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has entered into partnership with the Sasakawa Africa Association. Under this partnership, 5000 agricultural extension workers will be trained. Management training plots will be established in each of the five pilot states (Ogun, Kastina, Anambra, Benue and Cross Rivers), postharvest management extension support, strengthen farmer field and farmer business schools in each of the states, and will embark on monitoring, learning and sharing of experiences. In support of this, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has provided N 200 million to support the take off of the extension activities in the five pilot states. They will be supported with the upgrading of all the Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs) all across the country.

 

To kick start the agricultural extension mobility service, we are today distributing 800 motorcycles in the first instance, to all the ADPs and Sasakawa Africa Association to support agricultural extension agents across the country. 

 

We are also modernizing the use of ICT to reach our farmers, building on the electronic wallet scheme that we have used to reach millions of farmers now across the country with agricultural inputs. The Federal Department of Extension has started work on a digital information framework where farmers’ cell phone numbers will be mapped to their information needs. They will soon get information such as good agronomic practices, market linkages and weather news on their phones. To ensure that farmers’ can get information in their local languages, we are engaging the African Language Translation Institute of National Open University of Nigeria to develop a language application for selected crop value chains that will be deployed on this digital platform. We have initiated a Farmers Helpline, which is a web and mobile phone-based extension service with audio and video call-in facility. Through the Farmer Help Line, we will connect farmers across the country directly with universities and colleges of agriculture. This will be a 24 hour service, extension toll free line, where farmers can call experts (in their local languages) and seek extension information and advice. This will significantly increase the relevance of our agricultural universities in reaching millions of farmers. It will also provide practical experience for young agricultural graduates, who can become agriculture extension service providers.

 

We are working with the Global Climate Technologies for Development Ltd – an international company- to deploy the use of a daily weather forecaster. This will enable both farmers and extension workers to predict rainfall amounts and intensity. We also intend to implement a mobile agro advisory system, similar to India’s Progressive Rural Integrated Digital Enterprise – PRIDE, which is an interaction of technology, agriculture and business management across the nation.

 

Additionally, we are partnering with Columbia University, USA, on a revolutionary technology for testing soil health conditions right in the farmer’s field. It’s called the Soil-Doctor. Instead of sending a sample to a laboratory, which can take months, farmer will be able to get their soil samples tested on their fields and get their soil test results right away. Just like doctors treat sick people, soil doctors will treat sick soils. We shall deploy these for our extension program. This will open up job employment opportunities for thousands of young agricultural graduates, who will be able to run private-extension services to reach farmers across the country.

 

We will also strengthen our linkage with the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP) in extending Adopted Village extension approach with the National Agricultural Research Institutes.

 

Similar to our private-sector led approach to develop Nigeria’s agriculture sector, we will work through public-private partnerships. Our aim is to have private enterprises finance extension delivery systems and increase the flow of credit facilities to actors along all the agriculture value chain.

To this end, the Department of Extension is engaging relevant organized private service providers in the areas such as seeds, fertilizers, agrochemicals and machinery to strengthen our extension service delivery.  Shell Petroleum Development Company has demonstrated its’ commitment in this direction.

 

Also, through our Memorandum of Understanding with Sasakawa Africa Association, we will now be able to diversify and expand delivery of extension services by encouraging the participation of private sector, civil society organisations (CSOs), farmer-based organizations (FBOs), universities and research institutes. The involvement of Sasakawa Africa Association, will strengthen the country’s national extension system and ensure smallholder farmers have access to critical services such as training on new agricultural technologies and advice in areas such as farm input supply, credit, marketing and farm management. This training and knowledge transfer will help commercially oriented farmers to reduce post-harvest losses and put more food into the domestic supply, while increasing their incomes. This will also help farmers to fully exploit opportunities in the agricultural value chains by transforming agricultural products and improving product quality to meet market grade and standards and demands.

 

Today, as we gather as the main institutions extending advisory services to smallholder farmers to take on the challenge of feeding Nigeria, we must be pragmatic and re-double our efforts. We must resolve to nurture and revitalize and modernize our agricultural extension system through the sharing of knowledge, the harnessing of modern tools and technologies, and unleashing of the power of private enterprise.

 

 While congratulating the Agricultural Development Programs (ADPs) as beneficiaries of these 800 motorcycles, let me be very clear: these are not for OKADA businesses! You must use these motorcycles for the intended purpose, to reach farmers in the remotest areas with agricultural extension services and information to allow them to improve their agricultural productivity, food production and incomes. We will closely monitor your activities and you will be held accountable not for how many kilometres you cover, but how much the knowledge and capacities of farmers are being improved.

 

I wish to especially congratulate the Director of Agricultural Extension, Mr. Eniaiyeju, Professor Arokoyo and Dr. Edache and all the Directors and Managers of the Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs) and all the staff colleagues who have worked so tirelessly to make this event today a reality. Your labours will not be in vain.

 

It is my great pleasure therefore to formally launch this event to kick start the agricultural extension service provision for farmers in Nigeria.  God bless you all and God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.