Sincerity will stop strikes - Rector
What is the volume of water now in the Lake Chad and what are the factors responsible for its receding?
In 1963 when the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) commenced the feasibility studies of the South- Chad Irrigation Project, the water in the Lake Chad was in the range of 25,000 square kilometres. But climate change, low rainfalls, high temperatures, manmade activities such as damming upstream among others, contributed to the receding of the Lake Chad and apparently, we ended up having just about 2,000 square kilometres as at now.
When the hybrid wheat was developed, did you make any effort in introducing it to local farmers?
Of course, the Chad Basin is a development authority. We don’t go into cultivation, we do everything together with the farmers. We, therefore, practice what we call Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM). The only thing we do is to prepare the land for the farmers, provide water into the farms and we subdivide the farms into small-small segments. The farmer within the Chad Basin is as well informed as any other stakeholder because he works closely with the extension workers. They are fully aware of any innovation and if you go to their individual farms now, you will discover that they are using the improved variety of the AtilaAtila.
How do you strike a balance between the investment you made in the farms and the contribution of farmers?
The whole idea about PIM is to build the capacity of the farmer. Now, depending on the input we, as government, put into the farm, we harvest whatever that was cultivated by the farmers and there is a sharing formula at the end of the season, depending on the input. It is either 60 percent for the farmer and 40 percent for the government or 70 percent for the farmer and 30 percent for the government. Last year, it was 50-50 percent because we gave them fertilizer, seeds, water to the farms and we prepared the land. The only thing the farmers did was to go and pick weeds in the farms.
What are the differences between farming wheat and rice?
I think the difference is on what you actually wanted to achieve. Rice requires too much water. Wheat is within the winter season-just between November and March and the water requirement is not much. So, depending on the input you put, you can end up getting higher yield for whichever that you chose to cultivate. But I think if you go to the market, the prices for wheat is a little bit higher than that of rice. But I believe whichever one you decide to cultivate, you can make a living out of it.
How are farmers in the Chad Basin handling storage issue?
The SCIP Project was actually prepared for the whole value chain of agriculture, starting from production, processing, storage and marketing. These are the four aspects. If you go to our project site, you will see big storage facilities where you can keep your rice or wheat for as long as you want.
What about marketing?
We try to open up the market for the farmers. If you pay attention to the routes from Ngala to Kano, you will discover that many trucks, loaded with the produce are moving. Most of the rice and wheat produced in the Basin are sent to Kano.
Why is it that you don’t have the processing capacity here in Maiduguri or the fields in New Marte?
Unfortunately, when the Lake Chad receded, the whole project went down and the concept of processing was not actually developed at the time. But, last year, the Governor of Borno State Alhaji Kashim Shettima made a lot of efforts in procuring rice processing mills and probably, in the next few years, we should be able to process what we produce.
You earlier mentioned the collaboration between the Cha Basin and the Borno State Government, can you please
throw more light on that?
We collaborated with the Borno State Government with three things in mind. One, we want to create jobs. Two, we want to reduce poverty and, thirdly, we want to improve on the food security in the region. As such, we have developed the project on the basis of our Triple
Wheat is very marketable and at the moment, we are still under producing it in Nigeria. You willrecall that last year, the cost of importation of wheat was about N635 billion, per annum, which means we are not producing it here. Otherwise, there is no point we engage in importing that much on yearly basis.
Rs programme. We know that we have the capacity to open all our water canals, we have the capacity to pump water from our power house and we also have sufficient machinery such as heavy duty machineries, combined harvesters and so on. The Borno State Government took some interest and said they wanted to partner with us. All we did was to tell the state government our requirement for diesel, fertilizer and our requirements for tractors for land preparation. And the Borno State Government brought in all those items and that was the kind of partnership that we had and it worked very well.
How did you manage to draw the water to New Marte going by the fact that the Lake Chad has receded?
The recharging of the Lake Chad is a bigger thing and we are looking at it at the regional level. The project is called Inter Basin Water Transfer- which aims at transferring water from the Congo Republic to recharge the Lake Chad through the Central African Republic. This is a big project and is being handled by the Lake Chad Basin Commission that is based in Ndjamena. Sometime in 2010, consultants were employed to carry out the feasibility studies and they have submitted their report and they have indicated that it is possible to transfer water from the Congo Republic to recharge the Lake Chad and this would cost the six countries about $14.5 billion. But on a local level, as I said, we improved the flow of the Kumadugu -Yobe Basin which is within Nigeria and it starts from Jos and ends in the Lake Chad. There were a lot of interventions in the clearing of typher grasses and so on, which opened up the channels. This is the water that we utilized to carry out the irrigation last year.
What was the reaction of farmers around the Chad Basin when you encouraged them to go into wheat production?
Wheat is very marketable and at the moment, we are still under producing it in Nigeria. You will recall that last year, the cost of importation of wheat was about N635 billion, per annum, which means we are not producing it here. Otherwise, there is no point we engage in importing that much on yearly basis. The market is there in Nigeria because if you go to the major stakeholders like the Nigerian Flour Mills, for example, they import wheat from the United States, Brazil and so on. So, if we can produce, there would be no need for importation. Even the little we are producing here is being consumed locally. There is hardly a home that doesn’t eat wheat now because of cases of diabetes all over the country. Wheat can be used for flour, Semovita, noodles and many others. Farmers that are producing wheat are doing very well. I remember a time when I met a small farmer who told me that he got about N400, 000 from the sales of wheat he produced in his farm.