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‘Nigerian youths don’t want crude agriculture’

By Chuks Nwanne
04 March 2017   |   2:41 am
I think I will say, contrary to what I’ve heard people say that youth don’t want agriculture, so many youth I’ve had access to talk with in training, what they don’t want is not agriculture....

Samson Ogbole<br />

With an MSC degree in Biochemistry, Samson Ogbole is the co-founder of PS Nutrac, a Lagos-based firm that aims at exploring agricultural technologies for efficiency in food production and food security.With special focus on aeroponics, a system of agriculture that involves growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil, the organisation currently trains, develop and set up small scale agricultural technologies for farmers, while also partnering with individual researchers and research institutes to explore nutritional benefits in food. In this interview with CHUKS NWANNE, Ogbole, who has obtained different certifications, including Biotechnology from Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Introduction to Food and Nutrition from Stanford University and Public Health from University of Albany, spoke on the involvement of young people in agro business and how government can help sustain the venture.

Before now, a lot of people see agriculture as a business for the old, but it seems that has changed greatly. What’s your take on the rate at which young Nigerians are embracing agriculture today?
I think I will say, contrary to what I’ve heard people say that youth don’t want agriculture, so many youth I’ve had access to talk with in training, what they don’t want is not agriculture; what they don’t want is crude agriculture. I mean, you’ve gone to school, you are a graduate; you don’t want to be carrying cutlass and hoes. You know you are far behind those in the civilised world and you can’t compete with them if you are using hoes and agriculture; it won’t happen. But when you talk about automated agriculture, they are interested; they are at per with their colleagues outside the country, they can discuss.

So, what exactly has changed?
What is changing all of that is that people are now seeing agriculture in a new light, not the agriculture of the old. They are seeing agriculture as, ‘yes, you can work in the farm and still be able to talk to those guys that work in oil firms and not feel inferior.’ Secondly, they are realising that agriculture is not just farm work; farm work is less than 5 per cent of agriculture, the value chain is way longer than that. From farming, there’s somebody to take the produce from farm to the people; if you want to export, there are people that are supposed to be there. There are processors that want to process the crops into other things; there are those that want to come in to just package.

How vibrant is the agricultural sector in Nigeria today?
As much as we’ve done so far, there’s still a lot more to do for us to get into real agro business. In Nigeria currently, we don’t even have a working seed system. That’s an area I was telling some people that, if you want to invest in agriculture in Nigeria, invest in seed system; you would be a millionaire over night. Why, you realise farmers don’t even have places to get clean seeds to plant; as big as Nigeria is, we still have to import some seeds. When I say some seeds, I’m not talking about exotic seeds; things like clean yam, if you want to get ordinary clean yam, you have to go to places like Ghana. Or you have to know somebody in a research institute or the IITA before you can get clean seeds. Now, if we have private individuals coming into all of that, that’s free money; it’s still an aspect of agriculture. But before you start thinking of even having clean seed, you have to have a tissue culture lab. To the best of my knowledge, maybe very few universities in Nigeria have plants tissue culture lab; I think one of them will be the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAB), I’ve seen their own. I can’t really think of others that will say, ‘yes, we have a functional tissue culture lab for cleaning plants. These are things that when you have, it’s also a part of the value chain.

Are there other things we are lacking in agriculture?
In other places, you have community radios for farmers; we don’t even have community-based radios meant for farmers here. If we have that, people, who studied Mass Communication that want to go into agriculture, can just decide to focus on agriculture production; enter radio stations and talk about farming. There are so many things going on in the research institutes, but there’s nobody to help send the messages out. Yes, the youth are getting interested in agriculture, but now, it’s more because they are seeing other avenues that were previously unseen. Now, they are able to realise that agriculture is not about cutlass and hoes; you can actually be an agriculturist and never have a farm. I mean, I’ve met friends, who their job is just to supply raw materials to companies. Right now, if I’m not wrong, a truck load of cashew nuts costs over N700,000 to N800,000. And the few guys that I know doing this thing, they don’t even have a cashew plantation on their own, thought they spend a lot of time in the bush. All they need to do is to network with the farmers, ‘bring your cashew nuts here, brig your cashew nuts there, we will get a truck to carry them.’ Everyday, you see them bring these trucks to Lagos to meet those that will use them. Yes, there’s a whole lot that can be done in Agriculture and the youths are waking up.

Funding has always been a major challenge for most young farmers, what has been you own case? Were you able to access any form of loan?
No, I didn’t want to get loan to start. So, starting off, what I looked out for was first, like I tell people, what is the idea, what do you want to do with agriculture? I’ve met not one, not two people that have come into this office to say, ‘we want to invest in agriculture; we have the money, but we don’t know what to do.’ Now, the reason they are willing to commit their money to me is because, they’ve seen that, ‘he knows what he wants, he knows what he’s doing. Let’s give him the money to do the farming and we get our produce.’ Most of the time, what I do for these people is to say, ‘wait, I’m not the person on the field doing the real field job; if you want to do farming there are people that I know that are looking for money to do agriculture. So, you work with them. Maybe you tell them you will give them 5 percent of your produce at the end of the day; for a guy, who is interested in agriculture, that’s something good.

Now, you are getting free fund to sponsor 5 per cent of your vision, only paying back by helping the person achieve his own vision, which for me is a 50/50 thing. So, when it comes to funding, I tell people, what do you really want to do? Secondly, what do you have access to? It doesn’t make sense you want to start agriculture you are thinking ‘I want to buy ten tractors,’ you are not yet ready. Most people don’t know that you can actually rent land to do agriculture in Nigeria. If you go to places like Iseyin in Oyo State and other remote places, to rent one hectare of land is about N15,000 a year, which is ridiculously cheap. These are farmlands that nobody is using and you have these kinds of villages everywhere; tell them you want to rent a land and they will show them to you. You can start from there first, when people see what you are doing, it’s easier to now meet them to say, ‘I need money for X, Y, Z;’ not you coming with a paper plan and saying, ‘I need N10 million, I want to start a farm.’ What do you have, nothing! If I were the person that has the money, most likely I will say ‘no’ to you.

What of banks, is that an option for a young farmer?
When you meet banks, they don’t know how to lend for agriculture; that’s a fundamental truth, which I don’t blame them. Reason is, when you come in and say you want to loan money, maybe a million or two million naira for farming, banks work on collateral; can your collateral cover it? Now, what are the risks involved? One of the biggest risks we have in Nigeria, you talk about things like weather, pest, diseases, marketability of your product etc. Now, outside marketability of your products, almost every other thing that make up the risk factor, as a farmer, you cannot control them. When you can’t control these things, the bank is a bit reluctant to release the fund because, if they release the fund and it doesn’t work, how will they get their money back? Most of the time, you probably have your land in one remote village that the value of the land is really, really next to nothing even if you want to use the land as collateral.

What’s the best way to access bank loans for agriculture?
We have some people that have come to us and we’ve worked with banks and we tell the bank, ‘this person wants to do aeroponics system of agriculture;’ we are able to now come in as collateral because, the equipment on its own is collateral enough.’ The bank says, ‘let’s get this clear, the money we are dropping is for these equipment,’ and we say, ‘yes.’ Now, the bank knows there’s something has added value to the land; the land belongs to the farmer, but these systems have added value to it. They know they are not thinking of weather and all of that in aeroponics system, and we have helped some farmers to secure buyers to buy off their produce. So, with that, the farmer knows that how to sell his produce is not a problem; your only problem is growing them. So, with that, funding now becomes a bit easier to us. Yes, access to fund might not be easy, but I think the basis is to have a working plan with practical proof; don’t just go knock on doors and say you have a 10million-dollar dream to start a farm. Except you are very, very lucky or there’s a miracle thing following you, I don’t think you can get the money.

Are there measure government can take to ameliorate the situation?
What government can do is help people build agricultural cities. See, the issue we are having right now, I’ve met with some people and we’ve talked about the fact that, ‘is it that Nigerians love the urban centre so much?’ But I realised the answer is, no; most people are in the urban centres because they are chasing money. Now, if you can urbanise the rural areas, people will go back there and live. We have some people we are trying to work with; some groups of investors have come together to invest in that. Government can help set up agricultural cities and how they can do that is, instead of giving money to individuals, give money to corporate entities. Set up the basic tools they need for the farm; help them get the green house ready, help them get irrigation to the land; help them get electricity through solar panel etc. Once all of these are taken care of, it’s easier now for young people to say they want to go into farming.

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