Niger dry season farmers dump rice for vegetables
Over 100 farmers along River Chanchaga are yet to key into the federal government’s mass rice production programme in Niger State, largely owing to lack of access to agrochemicals, seeds and support from the state government.
Farmers in Acre Mata irrigation field along river Chanchaga are mainly into irrigation farming of vegetables than any other type of crop because they do not know the financial benefit involved in the production of crops such as rice.
But their inability to go into rice production is due to lack of financial support capable of sustaining them to cultivate rice as a cash crop which covers a period of over three months before maturity.
Most of the farmers in this irrigation field opted for farming vegetables because in less than 40 days irrespective of the type of vegetable they might have planted, they will be ready for harvest.
The farmers in this irrigation field mainly plant okra, spinach and much other locally produced types of vegetables.
Malam Abdullahi Koronko who has been an irrigation farmer in Acre Mata for the past 30 years said he only engages in vegetable cropping for the fact that with little financial backing he will be able to cultivate crops that have less duration for maturity, hence the decision to maintain vegetable cropping for the past years that he has been into the irrigation farming business.
He said in his own case and perhaps for all the dry season farmers in their area, they cannot afford to venture into rice production because they lack the financial backing to withstanding the enormous demand of rice cultivation that takes longer period before maturity.
“We don’t farm rice because it takes up to three months before maturity. In rice cultivation you must always buy petrol for supply of water for irrigation. You are always confronted with problem of pests and lack of genuine agro-chemical inputs,” he said.
He further argued that vegetable cropping is a type of cropping that manages itself financially to maturity in the sense that in less than 40 days, the farmers of such crops will start harvesting and from the sales they can easily plough back into the irrigation field.
In such a manner, the farmers of such crops only invest for a period of less than a month because throughout the period of harvest, which usually lasts for over three months, the crop generates the money needed for the purchase of required agricultural inputs.
Koroko who has about eight acres of irrigation farmland, told Daily Trust that at the time of harvest of okra crop he gets an average of 10 baskets per harvest in a day and that he can harvest same quantity of the vegetable at an interval of every four days for a period of over three months.
He added that if it were in the summer season when most vegetable crops flourish, he can harvest twice the quantity, saying that the more the input he applies in the farm, the more the turn over.
And for spinach and other vegetable crops of its family, Koronko said he can harvest two to three bales from an acre of his irrigation field.
The harvest of this class of vegetable crop also lasts for more than four months because the more you apply pesticides and fertiliser the more yield is realised.
On the amount of revenue generated from the sales of vegetable, he said before the banning of commercial motorcycle operation in the state, who were a key partner in their business in the field of distribution of their commodities to available markets in the nooks and crannies of their locally as well as the state capital, Minna, a basket of okra sold for N3,500 while a bale of spinach was sold at the N2000.
He further explained that shortly after the banning of commercial motorcycles in the state capital in January, the prices of their commodities crashed to as low as N600 per basket of okra as well as that of spinach.
He said: “Before the banning of Okada, okra was N3,500 per basket but a week after ban the price dropped to N2,500 and further dropped to as low as N600.”
On whether they have contacted government for any form of assistance with the view to take the present advantage of the federal government’s rice mass production campaign, Koroko told this reporter that as a group of over 100 dry season farmers at Acre Mata they have made several efforts to get assistance with a view to commence rice farming in particular but to no avail.
He further lamented that politicians who are in position of authority only take their assistance to those that were in their campaign and other political activities, adding that when it occurred to them that government’s agricultural assistance had been politicized, they resigned to their fate.
However, according to the state governor, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, while presenting this year’s budget proposal, the Chanchaga irrigation schemes was captured as part of effort to further support the Niger Rice Investment Consortium Initiative.