“Soft loans must be made available to young graduates and I advocate interests rate which is as low as 2 or 3 percent. There should be a moratorium of 2 to 3 years before commencement of repayment.” I NOTED much earlier that any meaningful attempt at reviving agriculture will require massive funding. Specifically farmers will need access to funds to boost their activities. At the moment, the government makes funding available through several scheme including an agricultural loan available from the Central Bank through the commercial banks.
Whilst this loan carries a much lesser interest rate than that which ordinary commercial loans attract, there is still need to bring down the interest rates on loans available to farmers. If required, government may consider the establishment of a bank or agency dedicated only to the provision and management of funds for agricultural purposes. Numerous researches In addition it is expedient for government to identify and utilise several other means of providing funding for the agricultural sector. Luckily numerous researches have been conducted as to how governments in developing countries can go about achieving this. Thus there is already in existence a vast pool of knowledge from which government can draw in reviving Agriculture in Nigeria. Direct finance: Direct financing of a particular actor of the agriculture sector is the traditional approach to financing in developing countries. This includes not only farmers but also other actors, such as input suppliers, processors, traders and exporters. All these persons need financing to get food from the farm to the consumers. Forms of direct finance includes savings, micro finance, traditional finance (i.e loans from banks), weather based insurance, leasing and factoring and credit guarantee schemes. Direct finance for example can also take the form of government giving money directly to ranchers to buy oxen. However as I noted much earlier this type of funding is subject to abuse. The Food and Agriculture Organisation noted that the benefits of direct funding may eventually outweigh the risks of abuse or fraud: It made this point in a report where it stated as follows: “The granting of loans directly to farmers does increase the risk of fraud, as it will be hard to monitor whether the ox presented by the farmer as having been bought with the loan was in fact bought, or whether it has been borrowed from a neighbour or was already owned etc. A certain level of fraud is probably acceptable if it keeps down administrative costs and allows a large number of individuals to be reached quickly. Also, fraud involving the use of funds by needy recipients for purposes other than those intended is of much less importance than fraud involving the diversion of cash to those not truly in need.” Loans, interest and surety/ guarantors: The common saying is that where money is not available, a man does not think of venturing into any capital intensive business. The fact is that many university graduates including graduates from universities of agriculture are roaming our streets in search of work. What these graduates need is financial backing to enable them embark in meaningful agriculture. It is a notorious fact that a farmer who wants to derive any profit from agric business must have enough fund either to buy or lease the land and commence meaningful work on the farm. Today, the interest rate in commercial banks ranges between 22 and 27 percent. Every bank insists on either landed property or a surety(ies) who are men of substance. Of course these are not readily available. It is therefore suggested that soft loans must be made available to young graduates and I advocate interests rate which is as low as 2 or 3 percent. In addition, I suggest that there should be a moratorium of 2 to 3 years before commencement of repayment. This brings me once more to the relevance of cooperative society. This system is important to give comfort to the bank for recovery of the loans given to farmers. The young farmers must be encouraged to join cooperative societies. It is the cooperative society that would stand as guarantors for their members thereby making it unnecessary for the young farmer to look for men of substance or landed property to guarantee the loan given to the young farmer. Economic recession In this way, both the farmer, the bank, the society and Nigeria would benefit because necessary funds would be available for the young farmer thereby contributing to economic development and the end of economic recession. Fortunately, our country is blessed with fertile land where these young farmers with small loan can produce any of the following: vegetables (tomato, pepper,) grain (maize, rice, sorghum), legume (soyabean, groundnut), tubers (yam, cassava), tree crops (orange, mango, cashew) and oil seed (oil palm and moringa) including fishery, livestock (pig) and poultry (chicken and quails), as well as forestry resources such as plantation including timber (i.e) gmelina and tick, and ornamental (flowers). Way forward: In order to revive the lost glory of Agriculture in Nigeria, we must quickly apply the following recommendations as follows: Agricultural science must be taught in all elementary and secondary schools as a compulsory subject. All universities must encourage students to study agriculture through reduction in school fees such as exemplified by my University, ABUAD where there is 50% reduction in tuition for all students admitted to study agriculture. In addition, graduates of agriculture must be empowered to practice their profession upon graduation just as ABUAD has been empowering its agriculture graduates with N250,000.00 for its initial startup investment in any area of farming. Across the country, each local government should be encouraged to ask families to come together, and combine their lands together, in order to work together and generate a large scale industrial farming. Also, local governments should encourage cooperative systems in each local government areas across each state of the federation. A pilot scheme can be initiated in each local government whereby either 10 family or 10 cooperative will be assisted to acquire two (2) hectares of land each for farming. This two hectares of farmland per family will be inspected and supervised by the government in collaboration with ABUAD. The government will buy agricultural implements to plough the land for use during the dry season. Owner’s account will be debited for this job after harvest. The land will be ploughed and prepared against the rainy season. During the raining season, one (1) hectare of land is used for cash crops (cocoa, coffee, palm tree etc) and the other hectare of land is used for food crops like vegetable, maize, cassava, yam etc. Return to agriculture In the growing season, money will be provided for the tilling and care of the farm. At the end of the growing season, food crops will be harvested and sold from where each of the 10 families make money and the government can also recoup money invested. Also, the cash crops will be allowed to grow for 3 – 5 years before harvesting and again, money is made. This process will be repeated every year with new 10 families and or 10 cooperatives in all the local government in each state. When this is repeated in a state with 20 local governments in ten (10) years, ten (10) hectares of cash crops and ten (10) hectares of food crops multiplied by twenty (20) local governments have been initiated and promoted to produce both food and cash crops. This singular pilot project will engineer food surpluses in the society and money-making cash crops to provide wealth for the families. For the government, no money will be lost and the government can recover all money invested. I believe we can revive the old glory of agriculture in Nigeria in general. We can do it. The current economic realities not only require a return to agriculture, the future and well being of generations of Nigerians yet unborn demands it.
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