Thread by @NaijAgroForum

Hello people, we kickstart our conversation today at 7:00pm WAT, you can still join us for the Webinar program and follow us on WhatsApp as we discuss and proffer solutions. #LetsTalkAgric

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Email us with a subject of intent to participate in the program on [e-mail] we will reply with link for the whatsapp group. Awaiting your emails. #LetsTalkAgric

Hello, we've started the training.

Hi everyone,the name of the trainer is Samuel Arua, a farmer, and an agro consultant, amongst other things.

Today, I'll be sharing with us some insights on the Nigerian Grain Value Chain, stats and indicators.

But before I go further, I'll like to say this: "One day, someone will create a technology that will fry and package akara in a great form, and that technology will disrupt the traditional method of frying/selling akara. So the question now is, who will be the first?"

What the above statement seeks to point out is "doing extra" and adding more value to what and how we've been used to doing things.

Now, it's estimated that the expected population of Nigeria by 2040 will be 200 million (this' a conservative figure).

The average age of farmers in Nigeria is 64 years, the average age of of Nigerians is 24years, and life expectancy in Nigeria is 45years. Connect the dots together, what does it spell? A future where we won't be able to feed ourselves.

So, after visiting several farmers, observing trends and reports, I came to find out that the basic challenges of the farmer are as follows:

Farmers don't know how to market, and so loose during bargaining and negotiations, because all they want to do is sell of their wares.

Farmers in general have a huge challenge of accessing the right markets for their products, and so loose out most times when they don't find ready markets. Now lemme explain better:

Take a trip to certain parts of Benue, in some locations, the locals beg you to take some farm products and give them whatever you have, because
1) they don't have access to the right markets to offtake those products

2) Without access to these markets, these products will perish in their hands, and so, they must dispose of them very quickly.

Do you even know that some farmers don't go back home with the perishables (fruits & vegetables) they go to the market with?

They would rather abandon those goods at the market because it'll cost them extra money that they don't have to transport those goods back to their homes, and by then, these fresh fruits and vegetables would really become useless by then,

so instead of incurring another cost of taking home perishables that would definitely be useless, they rather abandon it at the market or sell off the whole stock at a give away price.

Access to loans. Most farmers find it very hard to get access to loans, since our financial institutions don't find them credit worthy. And the ones who do finally get these loans, the kind of double digits interests attached to them, makes it so much difficult to engage in other

crops that are not seasonal. Imagine collecting a loan to plant an orange or cashew plantation; here you're looking at at least, 3 years before you start harvesting the fruits of these trees.

Now, imagine the amount of interest that must have accumulated over the space of 36 months at 10% per month or annum.

Lack of proper storage systems to store products - perishables, grains and tubers, make farmers just sell off their products at harvest and not wait for the best time to sell their wares at a premium price.

Lack of proper logistics solutions increases the chances of Post Harvest Loss (PHL). Imagine a farmer whose hectares of cassava is somewhere deep in the bush, whose only access to that farm is a windy path; how long do you think these cassavas,

when harvested will take before it gets to the trucks that will transport them to the processing plant? For a poultry farm road, imagine if his farm is located in a place with a very poor road network, what you think will happen p his eggs when he's making his deliveries?

Same with the fresh fruit and vegetables farmers. Post harvest loss usually begins from the farm till it gets to the market. Infact, look out for any truck carrying tomatoes from the North to the West.

You would notice the continuous dripping off water from those trucks, and that's your valuable tomatoes wasting efore it even gets to the market.

Farmers loose so much money at harvest because they don't explore the other chains of value in the product. Lemme give you some insights: Do you know that when you're processing Cassava for garri, you can actually still get starch?

Do you know that you stand to get more money for your maize if you allow them dry & bag them?
Do you know that orange is wasted in Nigeria, meanwhile juice manufacturing companies import almost 100% of all the orange concentrates they use in the manufacturing of their juices.

Same goes to other fruits. Aside the nut, cashew flesh fruit is wasted at harvest, and that's a big market for juice markets in Europe and Asia. The list goes on and on.

Do you also know that a lot of farmers have lost good size of their harvest this year because of late rain? Lack of weather planning and education is another concern, as along as Global Warming remains an issue, rain patterns will continue to change & affect farmers for the worst

So how do we change some of these narratives? How do we improve our livelihood as farmers?
I got interested in the Maize and Cassava value chain because of the huge potentials I see there.

So here are some statistics on the Nigerian Grain Value Chain to get you focused and glued as we proceed with this talk:
• Population growth and key important market for grains
• Increase demand for wheat and composite flour based products

• Increase insurgency and terrorism in grain belts (the NorthEastern states)
• Flour industry dominated by small groups of major players - FMN, Dangote, BUA, Golden Penny, Honey Well, etc. and the rise of Feed Mills.

• Rise of fast food consumption patterns.
• Increasing emphasis on local production
Here are some Statistics to help us further:
• 21.5 million tons of grains were produced in Nigeria, in 2015 (Int'l Grain Council)
• 7.5 million tons of Maize were grown same year

6.3 million tons of Sorghum were grown same year
• 4.8 million tons of grains were imported same year
• 130,000 tons of wheat were imported same year
• 2.6 million tons of rice were produced same year
• 3.1 million tons of rice was imported same year.

Now, what are the realities?
Nigeria's huge shortfall for wheat, rice and maize, makes it an export target destination for other countries.
Increasing demand for wheat flour for bread, noodles, pasta, biscuits, drove USA's export of wheat to Nigeria to $1billion that same year.

Demand by poultry sector for feeds fuels demand for Maize & Soyabeans
• Internal wheat production is just 70,000 tons per annum.

Now, my fear is not that we'll produce too much for the future, but that the future will meet us unprepared with little food.

So, one of the main reasons why we've not been flourishing so well in Maize production is "Market Demand Data" - getting the right specifications of products from the buyer. So we just produce and produce without care for what the market really wants.

But before we start talking about flourishing well in Maize subsector, we have to address the issue of low yield in Maize production. So we invented the "Yield Tripod":
• Soil & Crop Specific Fertilizer
• Certified Seeds & Inputs
Agribusiness Best Practices.

Soil & Crop Specific Fertilizer: Basically, we make great errors here, even the best and most learned of us, simply because it's been a tradition. We have Soil Nutrient Demand (SND) and Crop Nutrient Need (CNN);

and both of them must be dully considered when preparing the right formula of fertilizer for the soil. But what we have is just people going for general soil test, then going ahead to buy NPK and Urea.

Over time, we've come to realize that at some point, we do more harm to the soil than good. You see a situation where the leaves of the maize are lushy green and full and big, but when you open the corn corb, you realize that the corn is small and scantily populated on the corb.

Sometimes, when the fertilizer is added, one nutrient is in greater proportion than it's needed, and so forth. So after some research and experiment with the International Fertilizer Development Center,

we came up with Soil and Crop Specific Fertilizer, which so far, has shown to double the average yield of the farmer. So,right now, the farmers we've been working with, have shown so much improvement with their yields since they started using the soil & crop Specific Fertilizer