Nigeria’s population is rising rapidly, yet the country has failed to make appreciable efforts in increasing its farm yields amid intensifying effects of climate change, heightening fears of food insecurity in Africa’s most populous nation.
Despite the Federal Government mouthing support for agriculture over the years, the country’s farm yield per hectare has remained poor and one of the lowest among its peers.
“We currently cannot produce the food we need to feed 201 million people because our yield per hectare is still low but we are making progress,” Ibrahim Kabiru, president, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), said.
“Nigeria as a country needs to do more and farmers also have to do their part in increasing our yield per hectare. We need to embrace biotechnology and improve methodology in planting,” Kabiru said.
Biotechnology crops are safe for consumption, he said, adding there is no nexus between genetically modified crops and cancer as it has not been scientifically proven.
Nigeria has the least average yield per hectare of four selected most consumed crops among its African peers such as Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, recent data from the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) show.
For tomatoes, the average yield per hectare in Nigeria is 7 metric tonnes (MT), Kenya’s is 20MT, Ghana’s 8MT, and South Africa’s 76MT.
Similarly, for maize, which is the most consumed grain on the continent, Nigeria’s yield per hectare is 1.6 on the average despite being the second-largest grower of the crop, while Kenya and Ghana have same average yield of 2MT per hectare and South Africa has 6MT per hectare.
For potatoes, the best rounded and nutrient root in all of Africa, Nigeria’s yield per hectare is 3.7MT, Kenya 15.5MT, and South Africa 38.8MT.
Nigeria’s average yield per hectare for rice paddy is 2MT, while Kenya, South Africa and Ghana have same average yield per hectare of 3MT.
Nigeria now records huge demand-supply gaps in most of its staple foods owing to low crop yields, even as the population growth rate stands at 3.2 percent per annum and projected to surpass the 300 million mark by 2050, according to The World Population Prospects 2017.
Nigeria is now populated by 201 million people who must be fed with rice, beans, tomatoes and potatoes, among others.
“Nigeria has one of the lowest yields per hectare globally. We abandoned agriculture for a very long time when other countries were developing theirs. It is now we are coming back to it and there is still a lot that has to be done,” Emmanuel Ijewere, vice president, Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), said at a CEOs’ breakfast meeting in Lagos last year.
“In tomatoes, for instance, only one percent of Nigerian farmers plant their tomatoes using hybrid seeds and seedlings. In Ghana, 40 percent of their farmers farm with hybrid seeds and in Kenya, it is 68 percent of their farmers that use improved seeds and seedlings,” Ijewere said.
Apart from low yields, climate change has been altering and disrupting farming cycle in the country for the past three years.
The widespread flooding in the last two years has caused crop losses and low production as farms were submerged in floods, leading to high prices of food and imports.
AfricanFarmer Mogaji, chief executive officer, X-Ray Consulting Limited, said that climate change has become a critical issue for smallholder farmers and that the impact on agriculture is becoming more intense.
“It will be a major determinant of food production and Africa’s vulnerability to climate change is closely linked to the continent’s low adaptive capacity and increasing dependence on resources sensitive to changes in climate,” he said.
Mogaji said the country must now increase its mechanisation and improve its storage to reduce post-harvest losses to meet the ever-increasing mouths needed to be fed.
“Government needs to attract more private capital to agriculture. Inputs are expensive and high quality seeds are lacking. We need investments and government intervention in these areas,” he said.
JOSEPHINE OKOJIE
