More farming less productivity – Time to block waste and encourage more youth participation in agriculture

Africa is said to be having a unique population profile, with 44% of its population under the age 15 in 2006; making sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) the youngest region of the world. Today, two out of three inhabitants of SSA are under 25 years of age. SSA is home to over 200 million young people, who are employed primarily in agriculture, where they account for 65% of the total employment. ¹ Thus, young Africans are the key to African agriculture development [development in general]. However, many are unable to fulfill their potential because of poverty, hunger, poor health and lack of education. This correlate with the British Council Research report of 2010 on Nigeria, tagged Next Generation Nigeria. One of its key findings was “Nigeria stands on the threshold of what could be the greatest transformation in its history. By 2030, it will be one of the few countries in the world that has young workers in plentiful supply. Youth, not oil, will be the country's most valuable resource in the twenty-first century.” ²    

The current challenge in my community and country is the issue of waste of resources in whatever form human and natural. This sometimes shows itself in none inclusion of young people in policy formation groups, caused by failed leadership, like note by Late Professor Chinua Achebe “The Trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing wrong with the Nigeria land, climate, water, air and anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility and challenges of personal example which is the hall mark of true leadership.”

Using the agricultural sector where I currently work, the need to build the capacity in Africa and Africans is more urgent now than ever, because the continent holds the potential to provide food for the rest of the world and create diversified green living. However one of the threats to this potential is wastage, resulting from lack of capacity to manage resources.

Despite past efforts to grow the African economy through agriculture, poor handling of resources and wastages have remained a recurring challenge. My country, Nigeria is a perfect prototype of the colossal waste that takes place at every level of Governance and in the communities. The challenge of economic growth is burned by the limited resources needed to tackle health care, education and infrastructural development. While faced with all the competing needs, agricultural development is also faced by the environmental stresses from climate change, reducing water and arable land. All this challenges and more make the participation of women and youths in agriculture a daunting process. All these have worsened the poverty index. Wastage (natural resources, intellectual and opportunities) ranks most as the leading problem on the continent. Therefore to unlock Africa’ Agricultural potential through small holders’ value chains, there is need to block areas of wastage.    

Despite harvesting the largest land area, in most agricultural products, Nigeria ranks far below countries with far less potential among agricultural exporting countries in Africa and records one of the world's lowest average yields. She yields little more than one third across crop varieties that it has the potential to take the lead in Africa and the World. Let’s take Irish- potato production for example, in Nigeria; Plateau State is by far the biggest potato producer in Nigeria, contributing over 95% of total output. The crop is generally grown by small, rural farmers on small farms in a number of distinct parcels of land that, taken together, rarely exceed one to two hectares and women are predominately involved in cultivation. Over the past decade potato production has grown sevenfold, reaching an annual output of 843,000 tons in 2007 (World Bank Report, 2009).  But despite harvesting the largest land area, Nigeria ranks seventh among potato producing countries in Africa and records one of the world's lowest average potato yields; little more than 3.1 t/ha, as presented, as presented in the table 1 below: ²

Table 1.1: Production Yield of some African Countries

(Source: World Bank Report, 2009)

 With increasing population the luxury of land is reducing and unfortunately, productivity is also constrained by the quality of seed, lack of suitable varieties, poor agronomic practice and high incidence of diseases. In response to the identified challenges, many social enterprise and few cooperate organization are introducing model demonstrating a step change in crop yield and quality, strengthening the entire food value chain in Nigeria. Such initiative most be encouraged strengthened by blocking areas of wastage. And to do this needs sound policy framework and encouraging young entrepreneurs to provide solutions.

Privileged for two years (2014-2015) working with Syngenta Nigeria Limited (SNL) first as an intern; as an intern, my role held critical internal and external crop across a range of agronomic and market conditions. Gave support to the application of specific crop solutions, Integrated Solutions and also serve as the conduit for field-level generation of potential Integrated Solutions.  Work in Plateau State with Field Expert in the design, communication, and implementation of solutions for the assigned crop. We both supported the National Root Crop Research Institute, Vom-Plateau to ensure the successful release of Marabel variety of Potato in Nigeria in December 2014 and two more varieties Jelly and Rumba January 2016; also promoted Syngenta solutions to manage Potato blight infection with channel partners, key producers and influencers. These two events variety release and management of the blight situation gave us the Potato team the Innovation at Scale Award 2014; while I one of the best three interns, winning Performance to Win Award; also won Intensity with Choice Award.

In 2015 I facilitated on the ground level support for both the SNL Sales and Technical team by working with poor resource based farmers in identifying their challenges/problems with the aim of providing fitting solutions. Also managing trials and commercial demonstrations farms, trainings on products knowledge and safety, while also supporting some large-scale farmers and implementing engagements with partners (e.g. Propcom  Mai-karfi project focus on making rural markets work for the poor); another critical  role I played in my territory is facilitating business relationship between distributors and retailers while ensuring the proper adoption of the Syngenta Integrated Crop Solutions (Seeds and Crop Protection Products) across board. Regularly collect and report market intelligence and relevant value chain insights.

Following the concern arising from the diseases infection as results of poor cultural practice, need to have an all year round production of crops, poor marketing system and structure and the issues of availability of quality seeds. From my research across the Northern Nigeria on Agriculture development and youth involvement I feel bridging the gap between research and farmers will improve productivity and using social media collaboration will improve development and get more young people into farming.  Some this problem or challenges includes but not limited to:

Prevalence of diseases; Absence of quality seeds; Absence of durable storage facilities; Problem associated with irrigation; Adulteration of farm inputs like fertilizer, agrochemicals etc and Encouragement of youth/women participation in large scale production.

Currently I believe GCARD3 will help Government agricultural agencies and media houses be empowered to carry out strategic massive campaign on good growth production process to build on the work research organisation are doing, so been a part of a global conversation on the future of agric-food research and innovation which I believe will cut the waste that have kept young people out of the sector, which they hold the key to release the potential here in Africa, will give me the skills to improve entrepreneurship and Agriculture in Nigeria, especially supporting efforts to make Agriculture a Business ventures, knowing it is the only means to fight poverty.

My mission as Nigerian Development worker and intellectual entrepreneur based in Nigeria dedicated to integral development work in communities within global south is engagement of communities in social justice advocacy for continuous changes that brings sustainable development with strong will in social research gears towards quality knowledge and skill transfer to the change generation.  Recipient of SIFE/ENACTUS-Intl. Network, Service Leadership Award and USIP-International Fellowship;  I work to improve democratic governance and entrepreneurship in Nigeria and Africa at large; with over 15 years community professional experience; I work to give young adults tools to impact their space. Specializing in both direct and inclusive level work in the areas of Agribusiness, Peacebuilding, Community Health, Disaster management, Gender inclusiveness, and Democratic governance; Worked as a Junior Field Expert and Demand promoter for Syngenta AG (April 2014- January 2016) a global Swiss agribusiness that markets seeds and agrochemicals, working with rural communities to make Agric business not developmental project in Nigeria and Africa to fight poverty.  I presently consult on Development with Omojomi Consultancy Service. While volunteering with several communities based NGOs on Youth Development and Social Justice. My other interests is in food security, poverty prevention and micro-enterprise endeavors, education (teaching).And POLITICS ³

This blog post is part of the GCARD3 Youth blogpost applications. The content, structure and grammar is at the discretion of the author only.

Picture credit: Omojomi Consult