Nigeria May Soon Soak ‘Garri’ With Crude Oil, NFGCS Boss Laments

LeadershipNG | 29, March 2020

The national coordinator/national secretary Nigeria Farmers Group and Cooperative Society, NFGCS, Retson Tedheke has warned that Nigeria may soon start soaking ‘garri’ with crude oil, if necessary steps are not taking to leverage on its comparative advantage in agriculture.

Tedheke, who gave this warning at press conference to mark the three years anniversary of the farm, lamented that despite the abundance of land and people, Nigeria has continued to earn below average from agriculture which ordinarily is meant to be the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.

He bemoaned the fact that Nigeria earned 105 billion dollars from crude oil in the first four years of Buhari’s presidency; an amount he said is equivalent to what Holland earns from agriculture in a year.

“Nigeria earned one hundred and five billion dollars in the first four years of President Nuhammadu Buhari’s presidency from oil. The amount of money Holland earns in a year from agriculture. The solution to our problem is right in our face. We must be committed to agriculture.

“It is madness that Holland with less than 30 million people generates in excess of a 100 billion euros every year from agriculture, from farming. It is madness that Australia with about 25 million people has more cows than human beings and generates 60 billion dollars from milk,” he lamented.

Speaking on NFGCS journey in the last three years, Tedheke explained that the Nigerian Farmers Group engaged in how to be part of the Nigeria solution and not part of its problem. “In three years, we may not have reached our desired destination but certainly have moved from planting maize in 2017 to planting multiple crops in 2018 and 2019, we went into processing.

“Today, we have the capacity to produce two trailer load of rice in day. Now we have a flour mill. We are exploring local technologies to achieve our targets. At the Nigeria’s Farmers Group, we believe the concept of technology must not be foreign. If you rely solely on foreign technology, we lose the essence of development,” he buttressed.

He revealed that the farm started the farm with 1.5 million naira loan, obtained from Kia Kia loan but over last three years, we have done average of about a billion naira every year in gross turnover.

On the support the group has received since inception, Tedheke said, the farm is yet to receive a kobo from government, its institution or private financial institutions. “We have received zero assistance from the Nigerian Government and its agencies or anybody. We have also received zero assistance from any bank across this country. We have written applications, we have done paper works. We have borrowed collateral to guaranty them. All ended in stories.”

He identified two things that are the greatest strength of this Nigeria as land and its people. “What Nigeria Farmer’s Group did differently was to harmonise the community around the farm, under the leadership of Ibrahim Adamu, who is my village head. We harmomised Gaate Community around the project, focused not just on our differences but our collective mutual benefits.

“We didn’t come here to start discussing issues around Fulani herdsmen. We didn’t come here to look at the failure of the Hausas. We were not interested in the conflicts that exist along our fractured lines. We came to look at the Nigerian national project. The Nigerian national question is premised around, “how do we grow to become an economically viable country, utilizing land and people.”

Tedheke insisted that for the many social problems facing Nigeria to ameliorate, we must focus on our area of strength. “I mean, let’s be sincere with ourselves, we don’t manufacture cars here, we don’t produce Laptop or phones. So, it will be foolhardy for me to tell you that we should develop technology to make phones but we have people and land in abundance for agriculture. All we need do is to harmonise land and people, so that the problems prevalent in our society, from Boko Haram to banditry, which is as a result of the fact that a lot of our youths don’t have jobs will be solved.

“We have kidnapping because of youths who want to make quick money because there is no sustainable opportunities. The pressing question we are facing is how do we provide opportunities especially for rural Nigerians.”