Alkamawa: future of Nigerian wheat beckons

On Saturday of last week (March 12, 2016), a sleepy rural community near a flood plain in Wudil area in Kano State came alive. Excited little children lined the dusty road that passes through their hamlets as they gleefully beheld a long convoy of cars, SUVs pick-up vans and buses driving through to Alkamawa, a village bearing a name derivable from wheat (Alkama is Hausa word for wheat). For a road that could be barely passable for vehicles other than lorries, trucks and four-wheel drive during rains to be kept so busy at the week end on a dry day meant something significant was happening.

Alkamawa is symbolic in the choice for 2016 National Wheat Farmers’ Day by the Maiduguri-based Lake Chad Research Institute and other development partners at home and internationally. In Alkamawa, the story of Nigeria’s dependence on imported major staple found eloquent expression. Alkamawa points to the future of food security, a liberation and a restoration of hope for Nigeria. The road to Alkamawa is rough, unpaved; and so is the road toward wheat self-sufficiency. But the consolation is, as seen on Saturday, there is a growing political will that will pave the way and make the journey less stressful.

The dignitaries, including a minister, state governors, national legislators, private sector investors, commercial farmers, major commodity importers, found their ways to Alkamawa on Saturday in spite of the odds on their ways, a signal that Nigeria’s prospect of attaining self-sufficiency in wheat has proved realisable.  With Alkamawa, Nigeria’s economic geography is being re-drawn as oil and gas sector recedes from the centre and agriculture gains ascendancy, putting states first in revenue generation. The lush green fields of wheat in Alkamawa during a dry season signifies a return of Nigeria to the green economy it was once known for and the beginning of the end of huge outflows of the nation’s revenue on importation of a major staple.

With the favourable weather for wheat in many northern states, four proven varieties of wheat now producing about thrice the yields recorded in the first-ever attempt some thirty years earlier, it is time to celebrate Nigeria’s growing promise of self-sufficiency in wheat production. What began with Akinwumi Adesina some three years ago, and now built upon by Audu Ogbeh, as ministers then and now, has become a thing of pride for Nigeria as an annual average of N635 billion can henceforth be saved from needless importation. The possibility of this has been stressed by the Executive Director of Maiduguri-based Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI), Dr. Gbenga Olabanji, who said about 350,000 metric tons of wheat are expected to be realised from the four-month period of wheat cultivation spanning November 2015 to March 2016.

Alkamawa is a metaphor for Nigeria’s diversification of economic base, particularly into food production. It is a proverb for states to look inward and utilise their huge potentials to grow their own economies and that of the country at large. Federal government has realised the need to promote and enforce an emerging agricultural policy. The state governors should buy into it for good. Governor Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi state is an example. His state, according to him, cultivated 10,000 hectares of wheat this season, up from 2,000 hectares the previous season. This is a fraction of national capacity as the national president of an emerging association of wheat farmers, Salim Saleh, noted that over 700,000 hectares of land is available in Nigeria for wheat production.

Only nine states are presently involved in wheat production, each hovering around or below 10,000 hectares, as the total landmass reportedly cultivated this season was estimated at 100,000 hectares. If all the 700,000 available land were cultivated, Nigeria will be recording no less than 2 million metric tons of wheat harvest annually. Going by Saleh’s projection, Nigeria will feed itself and produce wheat for other countries in five years! Flour millers have testified that Nigerian wheat is as good as (if not better than) imported wheat. The representative of flour millers, and chairman of Flour Mills Nigeria Plc, John Coumantaros, said at Alkamawa that the production of wheat in Nigeria is a welcome initiative that brings relevant stakeholders together. According to Coumantaros, the benefit will be of immense value to the country as a whole. I agree with him.

Coumantaros, a major importer of wheat into Nigeria, was heard in Alkamawa, pledging the Flour Millers’ Association’s support for local wheat production and to off-take all the wheat produced in Nigeria, working with wheat farmers’ association and governments of all wheat-producing states. He was bold to announce that “my presence (in Alkamawa) today is a demonstration of” what he considered as private sector acquiescence to what the government is doing on wheat. President Buhari, in his speech read on his behalf by the Minister of Agriculture, seemed to have counselled the millers to go beyond mere platitudes and “stand by their words” of mopping up locally produced wheat.

Abdullahi Adamu, a former governor currently serving as senator from Nassarawa State said “never again” will Nigeria fail in effort to produce wheat. And I say AMEN. May the wish of Senator Adamu on wheat production be the command of all stakeholders in the agro-economy of Nigeria. With the huge research efforts and funding from the research community and development partners, including ICARDA, ICRISAT, CIMMYT, IITA, IAR in Zaria and Lake Chad Research Institute, and with the enthusiasm with which some states are coming on board, Nigeria has reasons to cheer in wheat revolution this time. Kenton Dahsiell, IITA’s deputy director general on partnership and capacity development, noted rather succinctly the success that has been recorded over four years.

After hearing all sides to the discussions in Alkamawa, my verdict is simple. It is the states that will grow the economy of Nigeria henceforth and agriculture will form the bulk of that growth. The lands are under the control of the states, and only those who can properly deploy them for agriculture will reap worthwhile dividends.  Now that massive production of wheat locally has been proved feasible, it is time for states with comparative advantage to roll up sleeves and get to work. We need to fashion out how to liberate Nigeria from the stranglehold of food importation, particularly of wheat. We need to deliberate on how our states would get down to the business of food production for the teeming population that might soon hit 200 million. With our foreign reserve at less than US$30 billion, the government, realistically, cannot afford to encourage more importation of foods, particularly those we have the comparative advantage to produce in-country.

 

Olukayode Oyeleye