For example, livestock, fisheries, vegetables etc. In the case of storage, there is serious lack of appropriate storage facility to store either perishable or non-perishable products. In addition, multiple taxation (both legal/illegal) are other impediments affecting price and other indices of the products. Spoilage and breakdown along the road all affects the quality of what is delivered to locations. Our roads are not motorable and this affects the ease with which the goods move. Transportation and logistics are major challenges negatively affecting movement of goods and services in Nigeria. The problems of transportation and storage have been identified as key impediments to agriculture and agro-industry in Nigeria. We support initiatives to address the major shortcomings faced by the agribusiness sector, especially elimination of illegal taxes and harmonisation of approved taxes, to reduce burden on transporters and agribusiness owners. We are working hand in hand with the government and other relevant stakeholders to ensure provision of good and access roads in the rural areas as well as maintenance of the highways to provide for easy passage by motorists transporting agricultural commodities. We are passionate for rural development, and strong on the issue of inclusive growth. (a temperature controlled), which prevent insects to survive and infect the warehoused grains. In addition, the use of cocoons to warehouse grains will go a long way in extending the life span and safety of grains. PICS bags allow farmers to store their grain without the use of insecticides, and provide them the flexibility to sell when prices are high. Generally, we have to promote the use of Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags to store grains without any use of agrochemicals. For those in the perishable produce sector, they need finance to deploy customised/temperature control vehicles for perishable products, customised rubber crates for tomatoes, livestock and fisheries, among others.This help to improve the lifespan of commodities and increase income of the stakeholders. We have talked about access to land, infrastructure, marketing, distribution system, technical support and access to financing and all that. What should further be done to enable smallholders scale up and commercialise their operations? For example, it engages private sector to provide fertiliser in good time at subsidised rates while farmers pay the difference and government pays its subsidy portion. Serious orientation, capacity building in business skills is required.The government shall only channel its subsidy programmes through private sector. In Nigeria, most of the SHF only wait for government subsidies, input, which come extremely late and affect the crop performance. A serious farmer shall use his money and pay for improved seed, fertiliser, provided he knows the statistics and he is convinced that he is making money. Everything depends on subsidy by the government which more often comes very late. In our country, it is very clear that not all smallholder farmers consider themselves as being in business as opposed to what obtains in other countries.This is due to the mindset that agriculture is not a business but just subsistence farming. What are some of the reasons such a critical population is poorly compensated? Many smallholder farmers live in poverty. In addition, there has to be deliberate effort in ensuring availability of good quality processing equipment at affordable price, investment in infrastructure to provide ease of movement of raw materials and other finished products, most importantly, putting in place good security architecture to safeguard primary producers and other important stakeholders. We need to make investment in research and development for good quality seed, capacity building and sensitisation of farmers.This will produce good quality raw materials for processors and affect the end product. From my view, the scale of production matters to generate levels that will make agribusiness financially viable. I believe agricultural challenges should be addressed in a way that supports the viability of farming units. What steps should be taken to drive agribusiness and the processing of raw materials?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |