Dangote to partner Kano varsity on agriculture
Dr Abubakar Garba Iliya is the Managing Director of the Chad Basin Development Authority (CBDA). In this exclusive interview, he spoke on the dwindling fortunes of the Lake Chad and its effect on agriculture and electricity generation in the north-east. E
What is the Chad Basin Development Authority (CBDA) doing to encourage wheat production?
Well, the Federal Government’s efforts to ensure food security in the country cannot be over emphasised. At the moment, the CBDA, which is one of the largest River Basins in the country, is tasked with the responsibility of boosting the production of rice and wheat. And we have taken the challenge and we are making progress in the production of wheat. You may recall that sometime in 2011, we came up with a concept in the Chad Basin referred to as the Triple R, meaning Rehabilitation, Resuscitation and Restoration of the Basin. This has yielded results. During the last year’s winter season, we cultivated 5,000 hectares of wheat. This was done in collaboration with the Borno State Government. Unfortunately, because of the Boko Haram insurgency, we were able to harvest only 30 per cent of what was cultivated. If we had successfully harvested the 5,000 hectares, we would have been talking of injecting 200 metric tonnes of wheat into the market.
What happened to the remaining 70 per cent of the wheat abandoned?
Because of the insurgency, the project as a whole had to come to a standstill because the workers in New Marte had to leave and the farmers themselves had to abandon their farms. As such, we lost over 70 per cent of our harvest.
Going by the fact that you lost much last year, what are your plans for this year?
We are taking the whole of this year to do some turnaround maintenance. Our Power House in New Marte has some technical problems and we are trying to see how we can rehabilitate it. Unfortunately, our engineers who are supposed to come from the United Kingdom could just not make it to New Marte because of the insurgency. Each time you invite them, they would tell you that they just read in the newspapers that this is what is happening in Borno State and, therefore, they cannot come. But, we are trying to see how we can do some turnaround so that by next year, all things being equal, we should be able to start with 10,000 hectares.
Does that mean farmers around the Chad Basin would
Unfortunately, because of the Boko Haram insurgency, we were able to harvest only 30 per cent of what was cultivated. If we had successfully harvested the 5,000 hectares, we would have been talking of injecting 200 metric tonnes of wheat into the market.
remain at home throughout this year?
The farmers are cultivating locally but, of course, they cannot get the support that we normally used to give them, but they are there doing local farming.
And the power house you are talking about, is it for irrigation purpose only?
The power house has the capacity to produce 30 megawatts of electricity. And 30 megawatts at the moment is enough to power the whole of the north-east. In the initial concept, the power house that was built in 1973 was supposed to be a standby to the national grid. But unfortunately, till date, the national grid is yet to reach New Marte. So, it is the same power house that is powering all our pumping machines, all our pumping stations, about three big ones and it is the same power house that is the standby. We have about nine generators in the power house. Six of them can produce 4.25 megawatts and the three others can produce 1.5 megawatts. It will surprise you, we utilised only two generators last year to cultivate 5,000 hectares. All the rest are still lying down there. If the transmission line is connected to the New Marte, we have the capacity to power the whole of the northeast.
How does the power house work?
It uses diesel and that is why it is very expensive to maintain because, on the average, you need 5,000 litres per day to run them and, therefore, is not cost effective for now. But we are looking for an alternative source of power.
You mean the machines can be changed to use another method to generate electricity?
Yes, I think there is a provision
for black oil instead of diesel and we are looking at that.
We heard of hybrid wheat. Are you aware of it?
Yes, I think in collaboration with the Lake Chard Research Institute, we looked at two varieties of wheat- the Atila Gan Atila and the Seri M-82. Surprisingly, the Atila did very well because we got a yield of about four tonnes per hectare which is unprecedented. In the past, we were getting about 1.5 tonnes per hectare and if you do very well, you get 2.5 tonnes per hectare. The Atila Atila did very well last year (2013) and the research institute is working further on that. As such, in the next few years, we would improve on these varieties so that we would have maximum output within a small area of cultivation. That way, we would be able to cultivate much of the land that we have at the moment. You are aware that the SouthChad Irrigation Project (SCIP) was conceived in 1973 and we have the capacity to cultivate about 67,000 hectares of land. Till now, we couldn’t go beyond 10,000 hectares. We are thinking that by the time we overcome this issue of insurgency, we would commence the cultivation of about 10,000 hectares and beyond.
When you look at the year, the SCIP and the idea of cultivating 67,000 hectares were conceived and the emergence of the insurgency around 2012, there were many peaceful years in between. What were you doing?
First of all, the project commenced in 1979 and by 1983-84, we cultivated up to 9,180 hectares- just close to 10,000 hectares. But something happened within that period and that was the receding of the Lake Chad and the big factor was climate change. The Lake Chad that was supposed to be the source of water for cultivation in the SCIP dried up and so there was no water to cultivate. Within that period, not much attention was given to the project and, therefore, all the structures for the project got silted up. And so, going back to the project means you have to start all over again and for about 15 to 16 years, nothing serious was going on. When we came in around 2006, we introduced the concept of Triple R which I earlier mentioned. We started rehabilitating the structures and the machineries, we were buying new machineries and so on and so forth. And that was how we cultivated 5,000 hectares last year after about 20 years of inactivity. If we had continued, by this year, we would be targeting between 7,000 to 10,000 hectares of land and, probably, after next year, we should be in serious business. Of course, the Lake Chad is gradually coming back because up till this time of the year, we are seeing some water in the Chad Basin and this is because of the efforts we made upstream of the Kumadugu—Yobe Basin. We made a lot of interventions in collaborations with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and the Hadejia-Jama’are River Basin. The Hadeja-Jama’areKumadugu-Yobe Trust Fund is also part of the success story. We really made some improvement in the water flow into the Lake Chad easily and quickly.