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The President of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RFAN), Alhaji Abubakar Wodi, says in this interview that farmers are not happy by government’s decision to import 500,000 metric tons of rice into the country because this will sabotage the efforts by local farmers to improve productivity.
What is your reaction to the government’s plan to import N80billion worth of rice to cushion effects of the rising food prices in the country? Rice farmers are very much aggrieved. Because we have not failed. We’ve always done our best. We’ve mobilised our farmers from the grassroots—from the local government, state and national level, we’ve been able to cover all the 36 states and Abuja—our structures are there. We’ve been able to convince government. At that time, government responded…and set up the Presidential Initiative on Self-sufficiency on Rice. Recommendations were made and we expected government to study the report and implement the recommendations. Unfortunately, government didn’t implement any one of them. We submitted a report entitled "A Roadmap to Self-sufficiency in Rice Production" in 2006. We presented this document to the former president Olusegun Obasanjo. He asked us if it’s possible to attain self-sufficiency in rice production in Nigeria. We told him it’s possible if he would facilitate it! Then he asked us to say the kind if facilitation he would make. We wrote it and tagged it "Roadmap to 2006 Self-sufficiency in Rice Production in Nigeria". We presented it to him and there are a variety of activities we have from the ward up to the national level. What we did first was the issue of seed production. You can’t achieve any food sufficiency in any food crop production without getting quality feed. By producing quality seed, we must use the right approach. One, in December that year, we said we would go to Lower Benue Basin Development Authority to improve irrigation activities there. If we did that, by May/June, we would have had substantial increase in seed fertilization in the country. We said each political ward that was participating in our programme should have a hectare of rice seed…we have 500 local government areas out of the 774—that would have been a big move. We wanted at least a three-hectare seed farm at the local government area level. At the state level of RFAN, we wanted a five-hectare seed farm and at the national level, we would have had a 10-hectare seed farm. By the time we complete this process of production, we would have enough seeds in circulation. We can even export them. It’s there in our document with government. We wanted government to go into micro-credit administration. Because our target is the small and medium scale farmers who don’t have their own money and they can’t go through conventional banking ways. We went ahead as an association to organise our farmers into Enterprise Groups. They are small groups of about 10, 20 people either for production or for protection. And a Presidential Report came out saying that as from 2003 government would be supplying 1000 tractors to rice farmers every year to attain self-sufficiency in rice production. From 2003 through 2004, 2005, 20076, government never supplied one tractor. We made a submission that government should increase the subsidy on agricultural input by 50 per cent—50 per cent on the seed, 50 per cent on tractor, 50 per cent on fertilizer. None of these was experimented. Our problem in this country is with the civil servant or the public servant than any body else. Because they sit down to formulate the policy, they sit down to design the programme, they’ll embark on implementation. They’ll create artificial surplus in the market. I’ve always told them publicly that this is mischief and conspiracy against the economy and against the nation. This is exactly what has happened again! Because they refused to implement the programme we would have used to achieve self-sufficient in rice production and they now say "let’s go and import". I don’t know why the importation. Government talks about public/private partnership but at the same time, those in government would not allow those outside to come in. For instance, when this self-sufficiency production thing came up, I was not officially called until somehow, my name got to the minister of Agriculture. He asked one of the state officers if he knew me. He said yes he knew me. He said he wanted to see me. That was how I was brought into some of these programmes. They would have sat there in their civil servant way and endorsed their programmes without including a farmer. This is the problem—the civil servants will craft their programme, monopolise everything, keep the farmer away… I remember at one time we were in a meeting discussing and one of the questions was why do we have hunger in the country. What do we do? I suggested we increase rice production and we need the technology to improve it in a way that when you get it, you just put it in a pot and cook. And series of recommendations were made. Those interested in bringing rice into Nigeria should rather come into the country, bring their mills, set them up with the appropriate rice facilities in the country and mobilise our rice farmers to produce enough for their mills. By this, we’re creating jobs, helping our farmers, we’re bringing money to our farmers, our farmers will have definite destinations for their produce—this will be a full business cycle. That idea was endorsed by the federal ministry of commerce. Would you say government should rescind this decision? The problem is that right now we don’t have enough in the country. Last year, there was no facilitation for production. And we don’t have reserves. The government reserves we’re talking about, how many tons are they? Does this imply that all that the Nigerian farmer produces has good market? Nigerian farmers have never had a glut in rice market. Whatever we produce is always being consumed. And if you look at the crisis today, it’s more about the foreign rice than the local rice. It’s an elitist thing. If you take a census of how much each state has in stock—how much padding each state has, we’ll then suggest to government what is to be done. If it demands going to buy the machines to go and mill that rice, process it there and sell it there, we’ll do that. By the time the imported one arrives, we’ll brace up and produce enough locally. After this year, we won’t want anybody to bring rice into this country. So ordinarily, rice farmers can meet Nigeria’s rice demand, right? Farmers have the capacity to produce. We started the Presidential initiative in August 2002 officially. But government has never given the rice farmers any facilities including fertilizer, tractors, chemicals, credit facilities—everything that farmers have done is by their initiative, by their concern, their commitment, by their interest. In a thing like this, we need counterpart funding, we need support. How is RFAN’s programme like? The Rice Farmers Association has a three-chain linked up programme. The first is rice production. Rice production is broken down into food availability, grain production and quality grain achievement. When you come to processing, we have to identify the problem with the Nigerian rice—when we produce our rice, it has to be properly processed, no stones, no impurities, no offensive odour. Then we talk about marketing. Marketing is the motivating factor—without it, nobody will be interested in rice production. So we make sure that we promote marketing by associating with other organisations that will need rice. So this is the three-chain linked up programme—production, processing and marketing. But you can’t have proper production unless you have adequate quantity and good quality of seeds. That is why we started by embarking on production of seeds. Because government can’t supply us enough seeds. The rice seed is produced by the poor rice farmer. All we need do is to differentiate the processes of producing rice grains from rice seeds. We have the National Seeds Service, the ADP, the National Seed Research Institute and the National Seed Association, they can guide our farmers to produce seeds that are pure, potent and acceptable. You talked about government’s failure to partner with you. What about corporate organisations, world bodies and NGO’s? As far as we’re concerned, we have not felt the impact of any bank. We were told that the Nigeria Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank was meant for the farmers. Unfortunately, we’ve not got anything from them through out its eight years of operation. The NGO’s—you see the problem with the NGO’s and the international donors, agencies is they’re from outside the country and they’ll prefer to relate with government than relating with private organisations. The government on its part would not want to talk with associations. We made appeal to these agencies but they would tell us, "We’re ready to work with you but we have to go through your government." And when they go to the government, that is all. For instance, there was a time the US Rice Growers Association was in Nigeria. I as chairman of the association in Nigeria expected that after the minister might have finished talking with them, he would introduce us to them. He didn’t do that until they left the country! We have never had the opportunity of going outside the country to see what is happening in the outside world. Clearly, government is not happy the way we’re running our programmes but we don’t bother because we’re not out to please anybody. It’s voluntary and it’s constitutional. We’re mobilising the farmers—if government likes, it can support us, if it doesn’t, we’ll all see the consequence.
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