A Harvest of Controversy

Apparently, the many unanswered questions on the Kwara State government’s commercial farm project may prove its undoing

By NICK UWERU

Farmland, Evidence of failed project?

It caught Tsonga town unawares. By the end of the ordeal, his Royal Highness, Haliru Yahaya Ndanusa, Emir of the town was left on tenterhooks. That day, April 30, was the day he gave his two daughters out in marriage. The conviviality had hardly gone half way when farmers from Dumagi, one of the 19 Nupe communities that make up Tsonga, stormed the monarch's palace in anger. They came with their families to protest the seizure of their lands by the state government for the Zimbabwean commercial farm project. The dust would not settle until the police moved in. After they tear-gassed the protesters and arrested 13 of them, including their wives, there was relative peace. Even then, total respite would not come. The following day, some of the high chiefs of Dumagi were back to demand the release of the arrested people. Three of these chiefs were also arrested. By the third day the protesters were charged to court on various charges ranging from public disturbance and threat to lives and property. As at last week, the entire town was cordoned off by fully armed mobile policemen. "It is shocking, I don’t know why the people think the Emir is responsible for their problem," said a flustered Ndanusa.
But the local farmers are in no doubt as to who is responsible for the seizure of their lands and why they have not been able to engage in their vocation in the last two years. "It was the Emir who took our leaders to Ilorin to sign away our lands knowing full well that they are illiterates," alleged Mohammed Saba Jubril, patron of Dumagi Community Development Association, DUCODA. He said that their lands were taken and little or no compensations were paid to the farmers contrary to what the Emir and the state government promised. He added that no figure could be put to what the rural farmers had lost since their lands were seized and given to the white farmers.
For most of the rural farmers though, they were never in doubt that commercial farming like the ones the white farmers practice is far more lucrative than their own subsistence farming. In fact, Mohammed Aliu, one of the rural farmers dreamt of making it big with the coming of the Zimbabweans. Until 2004, he owned 200 acres of land were he grows food crops that fetch him an average of N350,000 a year. But he had always known that the big bucks come with growing cash crops by means of modern farming techniques. That was why he was full of optimism when the Zimbabweans came to his hometown, Tsonga, in Kwara State.
Explaining the mission of the white farmers, Bukola Saraki, the state governor, said the farmers were in the state to start a commercial farming programme that would involve both plantation agriculture and livestock rearing. The governor added that other benefits include access to irrigation facility, elimination of poverty, attraction of basic amenities to the community and, of course, opportunity for the local farmers to learn new techniques in commercial farming. But the governor also hinted that huge tracts of land around the Niger River was needed for the project since the farming project is intended to be all season. Of the first 15,000 hectares of land needed, the lot fell on Dumagi, to provide about 4,000 hectares of the required land. Most of the local farmers like Aliu were persuaded to give up their lands. Most of them did not see it as a raw deal at the time, especially since the state governor also promised to make alternative lands available to the rural farmers. With the additional promise of receiving better seedlings, farming equipment and chemicals, Aliu and the estimated 500,000 local farmers that were displaced as a result of the Zimbabwean Farm Project, ZFP, did not see any harm in what the state government proposed at the time.
Now two years after, they see things differently. "All I see is famine and destitution staring us in the eye in Tsonga, only God can save us," he told the magazine. In the last two years, most of the farmers have not cultivated any crop because most of them have not been allocated land like the state government promised. When the state government took their lands, it had not taken into consideration that federal government had taken nearly half of the communal land holdings of the Nupe people living in the lower River Niger area more than 30 years ago. The lands were used to set up sugarcane plantation to feed its sugar industry and also to set up a Niger River Basin Development project. Even though both projects are no longer functioning, the rural community is forbidden to go back to the land. This was why some of the farmers at the outset feebly protested to the state government that there would be shortage of arable lands as soon as the white farmers take over the virgin lands of Epanasara and Kushe, designated farming areas in the town. "Our stores are now empty, even if we have lands to farm now, there are no seeds to plant them after nearly two years that our lands were seized from us," added Aliu.
Aside farming for commercial reason, ZFP was also meant to boost local food production. During the last season, the white farmers grew corn, soybeans and cowpea, all varieties imported from outside the country. But any hope that harvests from the ZFP would be sold for local or even foreign consumption has turned into a pipe dream because the white farmers against popular expectation suffered poor harvest last year. In fact, the white farmers, according to the magazine's findings are determined to replant the entire harvest this year and not sell any. This more than any thing else is of major concern to many that depend on food crops from that part of Kwara State. Though the state government claims otherwise on the farmers' harvest, testimonies from those who work on the ZFP farms give evidence of a failed harvest. For instance, of the 15,000 hectares of land acquired for the farming project, only 300 hectares were farmed. This was after the projections were reviewed twice to farm just 4,000 then later 1,200 hectares within the two years. Even with the 300 hectares farmed, the magazine gathered that the harvest was dismal. "I can tell you that the entire harvest will not fill one tenth of a storage silo," said Yahaya Jubril, one of the hands hired by the white farmers to supervise the harvest.
Even the livestock rearing section suffered a similar fate. The state had planned to import 10,000 herds of cattle for its dairy farm projects. Later, the figure was reduced to 1,500 herds with projection of producing 20 gallons of milk per day. Not a single cow has been imported for this project so far. All these, despite the state’s reportedly spending about $500,000 on just the farming activities alone. The dismal result is not surprising to the farmers though. Shortly before the harvest, Pete Dutoite, one of the Zimbabweans, had predicted that the harvest might just be one-third of their original projection. At the time he spoke to the magazine though, he had adduced poor funding of the project, wrong timing and the lack of proper chemicals as the reasons for the poor yield. There are suggestions that the problem might well be deeper and, indeed, predates their coming to Tsonga.
The impression created that such huge-scale commercial plantation agriculture came with the advent of Governor Saraki’s administration is not entirely true. A similar experiment was tried by the British in the years leading to the country's independence, with the same poor result. Particularly between 1905 and 1945, the British government had recognised the prospects of the parcels of land below and above the River Niger for commercial farming. This area has an annual rainfall of 1,100 millimetres on the average and with its arable land of fewer trees thus allowing easy clearing and tilling, anybody would have fallen for its allure and the promise the area covering all the Nupe speaking areas in Kwara State holds for farming. Like the Zimbabweans, the British imported varieties of corn, cotton and soybeans for planting. But the result was dismal. For the 40 years that the British tried commercial farming in the area, they reportedly made huge losses. Reasons adduced for this ranged from climatic differences to the unsuitability of the soil for growing such crops. Rather than improve the economy of the colony, the colonialists found that they had disrupted an age-long food production and supply network. Tsonga, like other areas around the great river, has been known as the food basket of major industrial towns like Jos, where mining was going on at the time, Kaduna, and Kano. Groundnut from these areas go to these towns. Even some South-west towns known for cocoa production also relied on the area for food crops like yams, cassava and melon. In the long run the British felt it was better to leave the area alone to its traditional preoccupation of growing food crops for commercial towns. So has the Kwara State government made a similar mistake like the colonialist nearly a century ago? Allan Jack, spokesman for the white farmers, would not speak to the magazine on these issues. Even when told of the disturbing antecedent, he simply told the magazine that only the state government could speak on the matter. The state government was even less helpful on the issue when the magazine broached the matter to it. "We have a planning unit that should have taken care of such matters," said Saka Onimago, the state's commissioner for agriculture and natural resources. He added that whatever problem impeded the success of commercial farming in the state in the past was in the past. Asked if the state or indeed the white farmers conducted feasibility study on ZFP before it began, Onimago, again, said the planning unit had taken care of such matters.
To Joseph Ogunwale, a professor of Agriculture at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ilorin even though such antecedents exist, it is unlikely that the Zimbabwean farmers would not have taken cognisance of such problem. "Reports of the British exploits in that area abounds so the white farmers would have gotten acquainted with the facts of the matter and should have found solution," said the professor. The magazine was also informed that the first task undertaken by the white farmers when they first came was to send soil samples of Tsonga area to Canada, for test. The result of the test showed that all that was needed was change of the choice of fertilizers for the type of crops the Zimbabweans wanted to plant. The state government would neither confirm nor deny these finding. While there are uncertainties as to the viability of Tsonga for the kind of commercial farming that the state government plans, what is not in doubt is the level of economic dislocation ZFP has caused for both the welfare of the largely indigent communities in Tsonga and for towns in other areas dependent on foods crops from this Nupe town. Aside growing food crops at subsistence level, cash crops like groundnut, sheabutter, locust bean and cashew nuts are major economic crops that farming communities in Tsonga are known to produce in large quantities. On the average, Dumagi, one of the Nupe communities in Tsonga, is estimated to draw annual revenue of N1.5 million alone from the sale of groundnut to different parts of the country. Before most of the lands were taken over by the white farmers, the minimum measure for groundnut used to sell for N60. But with the lull in farming in Tsonga, the price of groundnut has since shot up by a 100 per cent as at last week to N120 per measure. "And this is groundnut alone, nothing has been said on yam, sheabutter, and locust bean," said Mohammed Saba Jubril, patron of DUCODA.
On the estimate, about 500,000 farmers were displaced by the ZFP project. Many allege that the state government has not adequately compensated them. For instance, the farmers were paid N6,000 as compensations irrespective of the size of their lands or the economic crop found on their lands. Defending the state government action, Abubakar Konni, special adviser to the state governor on agriculture, said that the state government relied on the Land Use Decree Act that empowers government to acquire any land for the sake of overriding public interest. "Also, the law places zero value on land," he added. But most legal experts in Ilorin do not entirely agree with the state government's interpretation of the law. They argue that that what the state government interpreted to mean “overriding public interest” in this case does not apply to ZFP because the state governments has been categorical that it is private sector initiative. "It is nothing but narrow interest," believes Iyiola Oyedepo, a lawyer and former commissioner of agriculture in the state. He predicts that such acts of intimidation might work against the project. "Most of those affected by the ZFP project are Dumagi farmers who own nearly 30 per cent of the land area used for the commercial farm project," he said, adding that their consent or the lack of it may affect the entire success of ZFP. Even more, Rasheed Ijaodola, a lecturer on Property and Land Law said that no public interest is served when over 500,000 farmers are thrown out of their lands in the interest of just 13 white farmers. "What if the displaced farmers decide to turn miscreants and afflict the society," he wondered.
But the state government believes that the problems being encountered on the farm project would soon be a thing of the past. The officials believe that with the approval of the state House of Assembly for the state government to stand surety for the Zimbabweans to collect N650 million loan from the Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank, NACRDB, the problem of shortage of fund the project encountered will be easily solved. The decision is in fulfilment of an earlier agreement signed by the state government to stand surety for the white farmers in securing a $3.7 million loan from the banks. With the dust the agreement raised, most of the commercial banks gave the project a wide berth. When the state assembly gave a nod to the governor, not a few people in Ilorin were baffled by the decision. "The house should tell the public what ZFP has achieved in the last two years that it was set up," says a Tsonga farmer. Though the state government says the last harvest was a big success, their assertion is belied by their reluctance to say how much the farmers harvested. Even worse the economic hardship Tsonga people are passing through and the acute food shortage caused by the local farmers inability to farm in the last two years says more about this farming project bogged down by many unanswered questions.