NADF Set To Reengineer Agriculture Through Support For Primary Production

The National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF) is set to support Nigeria’s food security drive through increased farmer’s access to needed inputs to boost primary production in the country.

 

The Executive Secretary of NADF Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim disclosed this during a media parley in Abuja Nigeria’s capital.

 

Ibrahim noted that a five-year strategy that is built on four pillars has been put in place to enable the fund carry out its mandates and the first pillar is agricultural inputs.

 

While reeling out the plans for the organization and its priorities, Mr. Ibrahim said by supporting primary production with the immediate needs like seeds and fertilisers, the food system in the country will get a boost.

 

“How do we increase farmers’ access to the different agricultural inputs that are abundant? Because of the current and temporary food security situation that is ongoing in our country, our short-term focus is on primary production. How do we keep ramping up primary production until we are able to attain food security in this country?”

 

He noted that the reason for giving priority to the availability and access to seeds is because seeds are one of the bedrocks of progress in agriculture, as the seed is one of the revolutionary agents that other countries have utilised in transforming agriculture.

 

Aside from seeds, he also noted that availability of fertilizer is another area that will get attention in order to achieve holistic support for farmers.

 

“Fertiliser is the second that we have prioritised within the agricultural impute settings. Why fertiliser? Fertiliser happens to be the most commercially inclined impute within the agriculture sector. Sometimes for those of us that come from villages, if you look at your input cost into your farms, you see that during certain times of the year and for certain crops, fertiliser could be as high as 65-70% of cost”

 

“So we are looking at how we can increase farmers’ access to quality fertiliser and to different varieties of seed. Especially those that are resilient and those that are high yield seeds”

 

TRACTORISATION

 

On the issue of mechanisation, Ibrahim said NADF pillars is resting on the three I’s of agriculture which is Implements, inputs and infrastructure, noting that the fund is saddled with the responsibility of implementing a federal government tractorisation policy, a mechanisation policy that is being supported by John Deer a leading manufacturer of tractors and other implements.

 

He said the fund would bring about a system that would provide, not just easy access but also incentivised mechanisation systems by partnering state governments and the private sector.

 

“To the private sector we are hoping that we can increase the amount of private sector participants. We feel that a transition to commercial style of farming will also aid the current systems that we have in place”

 

“So we are hoping that we will be able to provide mechanisation as a service so that people can just come in, get, if they want to do land clearing, they come, they do that as a service and they leave”

 

“We want to do ploughing or harrowing, it comes in as a service, so that would-be agricultural entrepreneurs would not have to put up that upfront cost and would not be saddled with the responsibilities of maintenance, of staffing and the likes”, he added.

 

PROCESSING

 

Speaking on investing in agricultural processing, the Executive Secretary said the fund will be working with the Central Bank of Nigeria to launch 3 different processor-led products.

 

Mr. Ibrahim further explained that this is to ensure the country has more food to meet the nation’s food requirements by having processors as guaranteed off takers.

 

“So whatever we are doing, where does the food end? Is it feedstock to a processor? Is it going to bring out more food into the nation’s food requirements? So the three products we are launching are processor-led”

 

“This is to have people who have processors as their guaranteed off-takers. So processors who have retinue or a number of farmers, giving them backward integration. So we have a product for them”.

 

He added that women are not left out of NADF’s strategy as theirs is a plan to include women in agriculture in the fund’s activities.

 

 

 

 

 

Oyenike Oyeniyi