How Lebanese, Indians, Chinese rule Nigeria’s economy – Adekoya, LCCI boss

*Food security alarm: ‘75 percent of Nigeria’s agric budget goes to the North’ By Akoma Chinweoke There is growing fear that farmers might not return to farms ahead of the farming season particularly as hundreds of people have been killed in deadly clashes and thousands displaced due to Boko Haram attacks. At the moment, 85 percent of foods consumed in the country is imported. Sadly, agriculture is the only sector that can provide 40 percent of Nigeria’s GDP and 70 percent of employment. Prince Wale Adekoya, Chairman, Agric Group, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and also Managing Director, Bama Farms Ltd. is a mechanized farmer who knows where the shoe pinches . In this interview, he speaks on how mismanagement of the Agricultural Intervention Fund by those he describes as political farmers and draconian policies have crippled agriculture leaving real farmers jobless. How do you react to government’s plan to ban rice importation in another four years? It’s a laudable decision if it could be sustained and if it will not be like the ban on importation of poultry products where 85% of the products are imported into the country through our porous borders now. Four years is here before you know it, and we have not been able to meet up with the production level to feed our population of close to two hundred million people. The government policy is not the best because the local farmers have not been adequately prepared or supported by government. Smugglers and the Nigeria Custom Service will be the beneficiaries of this somersault policy. Government should allow local content to survive before embarking on total ban on the importation. Our farmers are not producing enough to satisfy consumers. 85% of the rice in the market today is imported through our porous borders; if not, the masses will have to suffer government hasty decision as there will be increase in the price of rice. Government has been talking tough on how it plans to turn around the agricultural sector in line with its transformation agenda. Do you say we are on the right track? Well, it was a very good development when they started the Agricultural Transformation Agenda which was a World Bank directive that all nations should develop agriculture. But it is a little bit complicated when it comes to Nigeria implementing all the policy. It was a good policy that farmers and we in Lagos Chambers of Commerce really welcomed but it is not implemented the way we want it because there have been so many policies that somersaulted. Government keeps coming up with this and that every now and then but the main problem is that there has not been backup with funding and you cannot do agriculture without proper funding . Funding is the main key to move the sector forward. It is not about displaying in the newspapers and television that agriculture is having a front role in Nigeria. I always tell people that before you can know if a policy is working, go and look around. Is the food stock price inex going up or coming down or is it stable? If you look at the way the agricultural sector is structured in this country, the government is focusing so much on the northern part of the country where 75 percent of the budget on agriculture is spent. But it is like putting water in a basket with all the insecurity happening there. 80 percent of the food coming to the South is from the North but you can see what is happening between the farmers and Fulani herdsmen and then the Boko Haram crisis where farmers are being harassed. Nobody is farming in the North now and it is affecting the food security of the country. So, why can’t the Minister of Agriculture take the bold initiative and do some diversification to the South? Southern land is as good as the one in the North . We can grow some of these crops such as maize, groundnuts and vegetables in the South-west, South-east and South-south. Why concentrating in the North and this has been on in the past 30 years where past presidents and Ministers of Agriculture usually come from the northern part of the country? Within the last two years, over N500 billion has been allocated to the agric sector. The US gave the country’s agriculture sector 3 billion dollars and I asked then that the money would not go down the drain like the N200 billion intervention fund that was mismanaged by political farmers. Up till this moment we cannot account for the N450 billion, equivalent of the 3 billion dollars claimed to have been spent on the sector as it is not reflecting and that is why there is high level of unemployment, insecurity because if our youths are fully engaged, they would never think of causing violence or engage in armed robbery because they already have jobs in their hands to keep them busy. Today, in the South-west, everywhere, we have hoodlums called area boys; in the North, Boko Haram; and in the Niger Delta, militants and these are what brings violence because government has not taken its priority serious. They are just targeting some of these big people who have got no business to do with agriculture and therefore see intervention funds as free money. A senator can easily call a governor and tell him he needs 1,000 acres of land for agriculture and this is something that he does not know anything about. That is why I call them political farmers and how can we move forward when real farmers are not benefiting from the Agricultural Transformation Agenda? 80 percent of the foods we eat in this country is imported . Go to any market in Lagos, you will see all those frozen chicken and turkey coming into the country from Cotonou and other neighboring countries. Our borders are so porous that they have turned Nigeria into a dumping ground for food. 90 percent of the foods you find in most of the big super markets in the country is nothing but foreign goods. Even ordinary fruits and vegetables are all imported. So, what is government doing? Is it part of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda to enrich the foreigners because they are the ones that bring in the goods? The Lebanese, Indians, and Chinese are the ones ruling Nigeria’s economy. There is nothing wrong to invite private or foreign investors to invest in the sector but what about the local content? What is your view on the extension of the Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS) by the Federal Government? The Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS)was established in 2009 by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives through a bond raised by the Debt Management Office, DMO, in the amount of N200 billion. It was first lodged in First Bank of Nigeria until two years later when stakeholders and farmers started complaining of non-disbursement. Two years later, commercial banks were invited to be disbursing to farmers at single interest rate of 7 percent but not more than 9 percent. Today, according to the CBN, N199.6b has been disbursed to various categories of farmers in cash crop, livestock, etc. However, due to the high level of corruption, the intervention fund did not get to the real farmers but political farmers. The fund is not accessible to real farmers because of the cumbersome processing in obtaining the loan. The fund is not meant to assist the real and poor farmers in the rural areas because to be eligible the farmers asset debenture in the farm must be N350 million while farmers in value chain is N150 million. The question is, how many real farmers in Nigeria can meet up with these harsh requirements? This is why I said the program was designed for political farmers. The loan was supposed to be a revolving one for other farmers to benefit. So, it is a good policy on ground but its implementation is the problem especially with the people assigned to do the job. Another reason the few farmers who benefited cannot honestly pay back is due to lack of infrastructure such as electricity, good roads to transport farm produce to the city, inconsistent policies of government especially the importation of 80 percent of consumable foods into the country without monitoring, coupled with the bad eggs in Customs who are supposed to patrol our porous borders. Banned and low quality foods enter the country unabated. Virtually all the foods in this country are imported such as rice, poultry products, vegetable, fruits, vegetable oil, fish, etc. All these affect the local production by our farmers. Most of the big supermarkets import 90percent of the foods they sell to Nigerians. This madness need to stop in order to promote local contents. Bama Farms is a typical example. We benefited from the intervention loan but government policies at the federal and state levels killed our business and passion for agriculture. Lagos State government took our integrated farmland of over 100 acres of land for Lekki International Airport, we were rendered idle and jobless and had to lay off over 100 people as we could not rear our poultry for processing at our factory in Bariga and we are still begging the state government to relocate us on time. The Federal Government, through Customs, allow banned and all sorts of garbage and contaminated foods to enter into the country unchecked. Today, 75 percent of farms are closing on daily basis due to high cost of raw materials and lack of adequate funds to run their businesses. Farmers cannot farm because of Boko Haram insurgency and fighting with Fulani herdsmen. But the Minister of Agriculture has repeatedly said a lot has been achieved. To me, the man is like a poster boy because I always challenge him that if you say this thing is working, how many farmers have you really empowered? We have so many women who are rural farmers and 80 percent of our farmers are in the rural areas but the infrastructure is not there. You cannot go to the bank and get farm loan . If you are lucky enough, the bank would give it to you at the rate of 28 percent, So, how are you going to break even?; that is why food prices are hitting the roof top. It is about time government stopped deceiving us. This is something that we all need to stand up and say this is where we can get most of our youths employed . Let us go mechanized as it is the only way youths can embrace agriculture . At this critical point in the nation’s history, how can we transform the sector? The only way out is for government to start listening to the stakeholders in the sector who are the real farmers because I am a witness and I have so many people under me folding up . Most farmers are folding up across he country because government refused to carry them along in their policy making. You have to go through the real farmers such as the Poultry Association of Nigeria, Rice Plantation Association of Nigeria and so on. - See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/lebanese-indians-chinese-rule-nigerias-economy-adekoya-lcci-boss/#sthash.HgUqPPcq.dpuf