Several takeaways for me, key among them includes that we are yet to fix the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) housing and responsible for managing the agricultural research centers in Nigeria, key outcome been that we continue to rely on research conducted for specific agro-ecological zones other than ours. The IFPRI did publish a damming report indicating that the admin to research staff ratio across our NARS was at a disappointingly 33:1.
Agricultural seeds research and production in the country is at an all-time low level, while yes we have seeds scattered across our markets, these seeds are mostly coded for other agro-ecological zones, as such, their germination rates are negatively impacted when used here, another challenge would also be that state and federal governments that are often the primary means of delivering seeds to farmers do not imbibe global best practices on seed packaging, transporting and storage. At least, in Kano and Jigawa states, we observed state government officials storing seeds under the same conditions they were storing fertilizer and other chemicals, in some instance, placing seeds on the same pallets used to store fertilizer.
At the Federal level, a large bulk of the practice interventions seen at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture are donor-funded, often dying off once the donor-fund pipeline dries off. The ministry and other agencies of government continue to buy agricultural seeds from sources not accredited by National Agricultural Seed Council, leading to supply of substandard seeds to smallholder farmers.
The challenges are legion, I stopped commenting on them as it became more of "conversation of the deaf".
Looks simple to you but where is the opportunity to share money? The day you figure out a way for your elites to make money from agric extension programs is the day it takes off. And hopefully, the gains will stick if carefully executed.
Buhari woke up and banned the importation of staple foods and nobody protested. Oh, there was a moral rationale to help rural farmers but we knew it wasn't farmers who were being helped and still looked the other way. Because Emefiele was printing money and dashing his banker colleagues and governors and their girlfriends. The entire APC machinery contorted themselves into pretzels to defend this policy.
Look at us toady. But they're not done. They're coming for solar panels. It started with cement, and then: tomato. It's now rice, milk, fish, eggs, sugar, etc. We might think it's just solar panels, but it's the iron law of oligarchy.
Several takeaways for me, key among them includes that we are yet to fix the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) housing and responsible for managing the agricultural research centers in Nigeria, key outcome been that we continue to rely on research conducted for specific agro-ecological zones other than ours. The IFPRI did publish a damming report indicating that the admin to research staff ratio across our NARS was at a disappointingly 33:1.
Agricultural seeds research and production in the country is at an all-time low level, while yes we have seeds scattered across our markets, these seeds are mostly coded for other agro-ecological zones, as such, their germination rates are negatively impacted when used here, another challenge would also be that state and federal governments that are often the primary means of delivering seeds to farmers do not imbibe global best practices on seed packaging, transporting and storage. At least, in Kano and Jigawa states, we observed state government officials storing seeds under the same conditions they were storing fertilizer and other chemicals, in some instance, placing seeds on the same pallets used to store fertilizer.
At the Federal level, a large bulk of the practice interventions seen at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture are donor-funded, often dying off once the donor-fund pipeline dries off. The ministry and other agencies of government continue to buy agricultural seeds from sources not accredited by National Agricultural Seed Council, leading to supply of substandard seeds to smallholder farmers.
The challenges are legion, I stopped commenting on them as it became more of "conversation of the deaf".
It's amazing how simple and straightforward some of the solutions required are
Looks simple to you but where is the opportunity to share money? The day you figure out a way for your elites to make money from agric extension programs is the day it takes off. And hopefully, the gains will stick if carefully executed.
Buhari woke up and banned the importation of staple foods and nobody protested. Oh, there was a moral rationale to help rural farmers but we knew it wasn't farmers who were being helped and still looked the other way. Because Emefiele was printing money and dashing his banker colleagues and governors and their girlfriends. The entire APC machinery contorted themselves into pretzels to defend this policy.
Look at us toady. But they're not done. They're coming for solar panels. It started with cement, and then: tomato. It's now rice, milk, fish, eggs, sugar, etc. We might think it's just solar panels, but it's the iron law of oligarchy.
Good read as always.
Tobi, please put a link to your "most recent essay on agriculture" for those of us who want to refresh our memory.
https://open.substack.com/pub/1914reader/p/no-food-for-the-lazy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=jbs3o
and this
https://open.substack.com/pub/1914reader/p/no-food-for-the-lazy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=jbs3o
Thank you.