By Punch Editorial
WITH the plundering by armed Fulani herders, depressed oil income, COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns, foreign exchange shortages and mounting debts, there is no better moment than now for the South-West states to return to agriculture, or, more specifically, the revival of the farm settlements strewn across the region. Properly galvanised and sustained, the settlements are capable of ensuring food security, jobs, export income and raw materials for industry. Besides, they can serve as the enduring solution to the open grazing menace of armed Fulani herdsmen that has created bloody fissures in the region.
Beyond doubt, like other parts of the country, the South-West has fallen drastically behind in agriculture. From 1960 to 1970, agriculture contributed 55.8 per cent to GDP, but crashed to 28.4 per cent from 1971 to 1980, and 29.25 per cent in 2018, says the National Bureau of Statistics. Nigeria spent N1.85 trillion on food imports between April and September 2020, a 62 per cent rise from the corresponding period in 2019 despite closing its land borders. The Food and Agriculture Organisation says that only 34 million hectares of Nigeria’s 72 million hectares of agricultural land is cultivated, leaving 38 million hectares lying fallow.
In turn, attempts by the state governments to restore those halcyon days are hindered by policy inconsistencies, growing population, dependence on expensive food imports and lately, insecurity in the form of Fulani herdsmen attacks on farmers. The Lagos State Government says that self-sufficiency in agriculture rose to 18 per cent in 2018 from less than 10 per cent in the preceding years, but hopes to achieve 40 per cent by 2025.
The easy part in reviving the project is that the settlements can be found across the region. Between 1955 and 1960, the late Obafemi Awolowo, the then Premier of the defunct Western Region, under its five-year development plan, established 20 farm settlements and five institutes, an idea his administration replicated from Israel and Sudan. Although the region has now been atomised, the farms can still be found in many parts of the region.
The delicate part is that the settlements have been left to go to ruin because of misplacement of priorities and the near-absolute dependence on the national culture of sharing oil income. Despite several half-hearted attempts to revive them by the individual states, deplorable tales of neglect abound on these farms. It ought to change.
Ironically, the farms sit on vast arable land, making them suitable for cash crops, food crops and livestock farming. Apart from making the region rich in cocoa produce and food, the Western Livestock Company created cattle ranches in all parts of the region. The ranch in Akunu Akoko (Ondo) reportedly sits on 8,061 hectares, with five dams; in Imeko (Ogun), a ranch on 4,000 hectares of land is in neglect, while at Oke Ako (Ekiti), about 12,000 hectares of ranch is similarly lying wasted. It is the same appalling story of abandonment of the ranches in Oyo, Osun and Lagos states.
Interestingly, the Federal Government’s National Livestock Transformation Plan (2019-2028) aims at ensuring the livestock sector becomes a catalyst for building national prosperity. In these gory days in which the nomadic Fulani pastoralists have created the impression that they can only rear cattle through their destructive open grazing, the South-West states can debunk that false notion by consciously reviving the settlements, with huge benefits. The schemes will strengthen the hands of the governors in eradicating open grazing in the region because the nomadic herders will not have any excuse for open grazing anymore. It is said that over 8,000 cattle heads are slaughtered in Lagos daily, at an average of N150,000 per cow totalling N1.2 billion daily.
At the same time, this can end the conflict open grazing has been inducing. Before they started acquiring AK-47 as part of their trade tools, the pastoralist Fulani have traditionally migrated south during the dry season in search of water and grazing land for their cattle. It is argued that the lethality and scale of the offensives by armed herders accounted for the ranking of Fulani militant herdsmen as a terror group. In 2014, the Global Terrorism Index judged Fulani militants to be the fourth most deadly terror group in the world, behind Boko Haram, ISIS and the Taliban. In a study, Mercy Corps, a US-based NGO, said the conflicts cost Nigeria $13 billion annually. Additionally, the ranches will generate direct and indirect jobs for young graduates. In tow, the settlements are able to achieve the drive towards economic diversification and raise the internally generated revenue profiles and export incomes of the states through the sale of beef to overseas markets.
A highly-valued trade, the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook said Australia topped the global beef (fresh and frozen) export trade in 2019 with an income of $7.6 billion or 14.8 per cent share, followed by the United States at $6.9 billion or 13.4 per cent, and Brazil at $6.5 billion or 12.6 per cent of the market. Other global large beef exporters include the Netherlands at $3.2 billion or 6.1 per cent; India and Argentina at $3.1 billion or 6.0 per cent; New Zealand $2.4 billion or 4.6 per cent; Canada $2.18 billion or 4.2 per cent; Ireland $2.15 billion or 4.2 per cent and Uruguay $1.8 billion or 3.6 per cent. The South-West can join the big league with proper planning and implementation.
For now, Nigeria’s cattle industry is largely underdeveloped and outdated despite a cattle stock of between 19 and 20 million heads. Therefore, the country is unable to meet its beef needs, which stand at 360,000 tonnes or half of all beef consumed in West Africa. In a 2019 report, the FAO said 30 per cent of the cattle slaughtered in Nigeria are imported from the neighbouring countries. All this creates windows of opportunities for a modern livestock industry, which the South-West can leverage by reviving the Awolowo farm settlement heritage.
Livestock contributes around 51 per cent to the agricultural economy in South Africa. In meeting the increased demand for animal source foods in Nigeria, a paper by the FAO says it will involve rapid growth in herd size and productivity, often associated with intensification. There are about 18.4 million heads of cattle that are predominantly managed in large herds by semi-sedentary and transhumant pastoralists. The aggregate demand for milk and dairy products is estimated at 1.3 million tonnes out of which only 0.5 million tonnes are covered by domestic production. About $1.3 billion is spent annually on importation. One of the ways to achieve this is for the South-West states to team up with the private investors for the revival of the settlements. Aside, the South-West must be rescued from the armed Fulani herders’ savagery. In addition to anti-open grazing laws, the revamping of the farm settlements will make pastoral cattle rearing completely unnecessary in the South-West and end armed herders’ siege on the region.