Improving agriculture through preservation

Arinze Onebunne

Evidences abound that one of the major challenges of farmers in Nigeria today, apart from access to finance and infrastructure is the unstructured market and lack of modern storage systems for their products. A major step towards market expansion and appropriate pricing is value addition. Adding value to agro products – it could be through smoking, salting, freezing, canning, frying, drying etc. In all of these, it is important that the product is appropriately produced, labelled and branded for so many reasons.

Farmers plant and harvest at the same time and flood the markets with their products. However, they can make more money if they have access to quality preservation facility. Investors can make huge profit by setting up a suitable processing technology to preserve farm produce; as there is a steady market within and outside Nigeria for the products. This intervention will be of benefit to both farmers and the economy.

Although, Nigeria is still trapped in primitive, small-holder, and hoe-and-cutlass system, which explains why agriculture is in the doldrums and the country is food-dependent. Adding value to agricultural produce will safeguard food wastage and provide surplus food for our people and power the industrial revolution of the Federal Government.

Against the backdrop of the unprecedented crash in the crude oil price in the international market and subsequent devaluation of the naira, a case has been made for more attention to be given to agro-preservation systems to enable export. Developing the nation’s vast agriculture potential remains the solution to the incessant distortion to Nigeria’s economy by the market forces. It is high time private investors latched in on the situation to help the government out by going into serious agriculture.

It is now very clear that our oil will no longer guarantee our future. It is no longer as valuable as it used to be. There are now more sellers and so the buyers have a choice. It is simple market sense and arithmetic. The numbers of people selling oil at the international market have doubled. So the buyers are going for the lowest price tag and the sellers are trying to outdo one another. That has left us with no choice but to look inwards and take other things to the market so that we can make more money.

Agriculture is our next best alternative because that is another sector where we have an edge over so many other countries. Our weather, our soil, our water are waiting to bless and make us very rich. In fact, investors establishing modern farms nowadays should do so with export trade in their mind.

The processing of some agricultural products like cassava, cocoa, plantain among others would help the nation’s quest for food sufficiency. Importation of agricultural products which could ordinarily be produced in the country was encouraging capital flight. Nigeria had many policies on agriculture, but effective implementation was always the problem.

In Nigeria today, you will find that it is easier for people to import rice than for them to be encouraged to produce and eat their own rice. Before any country can survive, for instance India, China, today, they are more than self-sufficient in food production, because they were at a certain period in their history consuming only what they produce.

But here, you tell farmers to grow cassava; 60 per cent of the cassava will be for consumption, then the policy is not sustained and implementation is zero.

The farmers produce cassava and process into cassava flour, but no bakery takes them because they are still importing their flour; by so doing, they are encouraging capital flight.

Why should Nigeria be sending cocoa outside the country? Why will Nigeria not add value to its cocoa, so that the industry that will be established will create job for the people. There are so many things you can do with cassava, the demand for cassava by industries for industrial starch is 230, 000 tonnes but presently, the production in Nigeria is 23, 000 tonnes.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation recommends promoting private farming, developing irrigation, training manpower and providing water supply schemes in rural areas. All tiers of government should promote private sector investment in storage facilities, food processing, marketing and research. Agriculture is fundamental to every country’s prosperity, security and sovereignty. Therefore, we should emulate the US, Canada and Malaysia, where policymakers, food processors, researchers and farmers at all levels work together to promote agriculture.

Malaysia dedicated 24 per cent of its land area exclusively to agriculture and consistently stuck to, and funded policies that have made it the world’s major exporter of palm produce and third largest producer of rubber, while Nigeria lost her 1960s preeminence in these crops as well as in cocoa and groundnuts.

Contact us for Consultancy or attend JOVANA FARMS seminars nearest to you and discover the essential steps on how to add value to your agro products! Can’t attend? Order for Self-tutorial VCD & BOOK. Visit us atwww.jovanafarms.com, E-mail:jovanafarms@gmail.com or Call: 080 33262 808, for more details. Choose also the nearest SEMINAR venue from our WEBSITE.