What is the community-based natural resource management programme all about?
Actually the prorgamme was designed to remove poverty from those who are in the rural communities in the Niger Delta region, especially women and youths. We build capacity for them, let them have the knowledge of global best practices because we believe that technology drives productivity and productivity drives income, and income drives enhanced living standard. So we build capacity for these youths and women in the area of production, processing and marketing to enable them abreast of best practice in record keeping. This will increase productivity more than what it used to be.
This also enables them to properly draw up a business plan and with the business plan, we look at it to know if it is a fundable business plan, or a project that can be funded. When it is funded, they are also given technical skills and a follow up to ensure that they apply the best practices they have been taught. At the end of the day, we ensure that they have the market. We link them up to output and input markets.
The input market is that market where they get most of their input like people in fish farm; they have fingerlings and get it from accredited dealers. So, that the farmers will not run into the hands of people who don’t have what it takes in growing productivity fingerlings. We also linked them up to output market where they sell their produces. We don’t want a situation where they produce and yet do not have any market to sell their products, which will be a colossal loss. We have gone further to ensure that they have links to banks because we may not give them all the loans needed.
But because we guarantee them, the banks honour their proposals and fund their projects. A lot of the youths have been empowered through our training and supported to get out of poverty. Many of them are employers of labour and people go to them to acquire skills. It is across the nine states in the Niger Delta and we have partnership with government agencies – federal, state and local governments; and other institutions that are agriculture-friendly.
Looking at the mindset of people concerning farming, how do you get them to buy into the programme?
The strategy we adopted was that we realized that youths in the rural communities seem to be sidelined in the scheme of things by the leaders and they don’t have voice. They don’t have the freedom to exercise their God given potentials, so what we have done in essence is to put the youths together and establish them. We have a platform where they can come together and share knowledge among themselves.
And we have also registered them as a legal body with the Corporate Affairs Commission, that they have a board of trustees and by so doing, they have taken their destiny into their own hands. It has been inaugurated in all the states in the Niger Delta region, involving government officials and local governments. Also they were part of the commissioning and launching of the scheme in the various states and local governments.
In the rural communities, the Traditional Rulers, opinion leaders, women leaders are part of the catalyst for the activities of this scheme. And the youths are very optimistic because of the high level of agriculture entrepreneurship we introduced to them. When they see achievements of other youths, the success story of other youths, we use that as a medium to inform other youths of the importance of the scheme.
What are the challenges?
Actually the challenges we faced at the beginning was the issue of funding because our partners were not really coming up as and when due to bring their agreed funds. The partners are local, state, Federal Government, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFDA).
But the major challenge was the local governments, although they have the highest percentage of funding contribution. As result, we were not able to draw funds from IFAD because their funds were attached to the counterpart funds. When we have the counterpart funds, we then draw the IFAD funds that are already there. But through some strategies we were able to navigated and still make progress. NDDC has been so wonderful meeting up their obligation and that has helped us to do the much we have been able to do with the IFAD funds.
What advice do you have for the present government looking at several inconsistencies in policies in the country?
The present administration seems to be agriculture-friendly because they are talking about diversifying into agriculture. They don’t want to continue with the mono-economy that has failed the nation, so they want to diversify the economy and agriculture is one of the areas the administration is getting into.
Meanwhile, I will advise that this shouldn’t be in theory; concerted effort should be put up to ensure that funds are made available and these funds will not just end midway but reach the farmers in the rural areas. If government will support the youths financially, encourage mechanized agriculture and also ensure that most of the foods imported into the country is banned it will go a long way in helping. The country does not have any reason wasting the nation’s scarce funds importing food into the country. We need to grow food enough to export rather than importing.
What is the role of Bank of Agriculture in this agricultural scheme, looking at its statutory roll of making funds available to farmers in the country?
We have partnered with the Bank of Agriculture and they have different packages for youths and women. Some of our youths access funds from the bank and a lot have enlisted for loans. Our partnership with the Bank of Agriculture is to ensure that the programme is sustained when IFAD is no more funding us.
What is the interest rate of commercial banks the scheme has linked up the youths with?
You cannot hold the financial institutions on the area of interest, but for the Bank of Agriculture they have farmerfriendly interest rate, presently we were told about 12 per cent for our farmers. This is fair enough compared to the commercial banks’ interest rate, but we are also requesting that the interest rate should still go lower. I believe, if it comes down to 10 per cent, it will be very good for the youth farmers.
How long is the scheme going to last, looking at the IFAD involvement?
The community-based natural resources management programme operating in Niger Delta region has ended. It was a 10-year programme after the eight years it was originally slated to be but because of the success achieved in the programme, the partners agreed to give it a two-year extension which made it 10 years and this ended on March 31 this year.
Looking at the achievements recorded so far, do you hope for renewal of the scheme by the partners?
That is the desire of the Federal Government, NDDC, our youths and the farmers in the region. And if all of these agencies have the desire and we are hopeful that there will be another programme that will take over where the former ended
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