By Rapheal
From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Concerned over rising food insecurity, stakeholders have called on the federal government to adopt a fair and strategic approach to the allocation and maintenance of 2,000 newly acquired tractors, stressing that effective deployment is critical to boosting agricultural productivity.
This comes as President Bola Tinubu announced the purchase of 2,000 mechanisation equipment to boost food production at the cost of $70 million.
Other equipment includes trailers, ploughs, harrows, sprayers, and planters; 10 state-of-the-art combined harvesters; 12 fully equipped mobile workshops; 50 bulldozers for agricultural land development, and over 9,000 complementary implements.
During the unveiling, President Tinubu reiterated his administration’s commitment to scale up production to meet local consumption and international demands.
But the purchase of the 2,000 equipment fell below the expectations of the recommendation of the Tractor Owners and Hiring Facilities Association of Nigeria (TOHFAN), which had said Nigeria needed about 70,000 to 100,000 tractors to go full blast on mechanisation.
Its Chairman, Danladi Garba, at the maiden edition of the Nigerian Agricultural Mechanisation Exhibition (NAME), said, “Today, as it is in Nigeria, we have only 7,000 functional tractors providing services to Nigerian farmers, while the demand level is over one million tractors that should be in place for Nigerian farmers.
“This is just a drop into the ocean, whereby we need one million tractors. The demand is high while the supply is low.
“For example, last year, we received over 100,000 requests from farmers for tractors, but we were only able to serve 70,000,” he said.
Because of the limited amount, some experts have advised the government on the appropriate distribution formula.
For an agric mechanisation expert, Alpha Jackden, the government should distribute the tools according to demands and competitive advantage.
Jackden specifically said the North should have the lion’s share, given its agrarian nature.
He said: “Nigeria is largely agrarian, but we must look at it from a point of competitive advantage. There are some states in Nigeria that are more agrarian than others. That just goes to say, for what it’s worth, the federal government needs to be very circumspect.
“The federal government will need to sit down and look at issues from the local right to the state level. There are states that will be needing larger quantities of these tractors than others. If we truly want to mechanise, beyond just bringing in these tractors, we must make sure that those who are going to use these tractors use them professionally.
“We must make sure that we have avenues with counterpart funding, not just counterpart funding. We also must see that where these tractors are coming from, spares are readily available. Beyond spares being readily available, we should have people come from the company to come and train local Nigerians on how best these tractors can be used.
“Why do I say this? In the past, we have had similar schemes. We’ve had Operation Feed the Nation. Even the Babangida administration had something like that.
“But I can assure you that because of our lack of maintenance culture, most of those tractors did not last more than two farming seasons. We hope that will not be the case as far as this instance is concerned. John Deere, I want to believe, has been the preferred bidder.
“John Deere has been with us for a very long time, and hence maintaining these tractors should not be an issue. But I call on all and sundry to make sure that whatever needs to be done is done to make sure we keep these tractors working for a very long time to come so that we can benefit from such an investment.
“As far as distribution is concerned, the distribution should be done in such a way that states where agriculture, which is to say most of the northern states, are expected to have more units than the South.
“Why? Because this is where they are mostly needed.”
On the number of tractors, he said: “Nigeria needs at least 10,000 tractors so that we can say we are mechanising. And do not forget, it goes beyond tractors. If we’re mechanising, you have to truly mechanise.
“And mechanisation is beyond just having tractors. You need combined harvesters, you need bow hooks, you need ploughs, you need harrows, you need ridges, you may even need helicopters. You may need drones.
“So mechanisation in itself is a total package. Do not think it is all about tractors, because these other components must be brought to bear. You need trailers, you need good roads so that you can evacuate the produce from the farms.
“Most of the problems we are having that have led to post-harvest losses is largely because the produce ends up, most especially those that are not durable, just being wasted, even still on the farm, because they have not been brought out. So mechanisation is actually a total package.
“It’s roads, it is of course the mechanical components, it is drilling boreholes, it’s having drones, it is giving credence to security and all those.”
A member of the Small Scale Women Farmers Organization of Nigeria (SWOFON), Nkechi Emmanuel, suggested that the government should distribute the implements according to their needs in different zones.
“This is a difficult question to answer. But all I will say is for the government to distribute the tools according to their needs. In the South, for instance, our roads are not too good to move this equipment, even though there is a need.
“The state governors should look at the nature of their environment and apply for the tools according to their demands. The bottom line is for food production,” she said.
The National President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Kabir Ibrahim, declined to comment on the matter.
Kabir said: “I do not think I should answer them because I do not have answers to your question. You know I am a beneficiary of the initiative and we were there during the launch. Nobody told us when the distribution will take place.
“It will not be correct for me to make comments on that until the government comes out to say what it intends to do. It is too early. I only asked for total mechanisation of the country, and I suggested 100,000 tractors and the government has started buying.
“I will better keep quiet and encourage them. I believe that the mechanisation process will boost production. That is what happens in the United States. Every farming activity is mechanised, that’s why they are having a large volume of production.
“We have always said people with hoes and cutlasses cannot feed over 200 million people. Mechanisation is key. It will help us scale our production.”
Executive Director of Health and Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nimmo Bassey, on the other hand, said the government should be circumspect in the use of equipment.
Bassey said: “The best way to practice agriculture is to work with nature without being destructive. The way is agroecology and not industrial agriculture. If you want to complain of mechanisation as harmful, that must be put in context, because agroecology is not against mechanisation.
“But it must be in a way that it does not destroy nature and the environment.”