Analysis of the National Special Programme for Food Security in Nigeria

INTRODUCTION

The World Food Summit in its meeting in Rome in 1999 estimated that 790 million people in the developing world do not have enough food to eat. (Diouf, J. 2005, FAO 2005) This is more than the total populations of North America and Europe combined. Nigeria is one of the developing countries affected by hunger, deprivation and abject poverty by its citizenry in spite of its enormous natural and human resources. In order to boost food security, achieve self sustenance in food production, and attain the Millennium Development Goals of reducing by half the number of hungry people by 2015, the Federal Government in response to revelations of this submit inaugurated the National Special Programme for Food Security in 2007. According to Food and Agricultural Organisation, the Federal Government is expected to spend about $45m to implement the NSPFS programme, whereas the Food and Agricultural Organisation would offer the technical and managerial support on demand to the Federal Government.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the NSPFS are to improve national and household food security and reduce rural poverty in an economically and environmental sustainable way; to improve household food security and incomes through increases in productivity, diversification and sustainable use of natural resources; to enhance food security of consumers through improved access to and availability of food and also increase income of producers through more efficient marketing.

Specifically, the Federal Government's projections for the various crops between 2008 and 2011, include: increasing production from 2.8 million metric tonnes of paddy to 5.6 million metric tonnes rice per annum by 2011; achieving 500,000 metric tonnes of local production of wheat to avoid over dependence on wheat importation; meeting the national demand for sugar estimated at 2.2 million metric tonnes per annum, among other things.

The programme was organised at the National, State and Local Government levels. The main implementation strategy of NSPFS was to empower small farming communities with timely provision of credit, agricultural inputs and technical support services to achieving the NSPFS objective of increasing farmers output, productivity and income on sustainable basis. The participating farmers are formed into groups for ease of coordination and management of credit and inputs received on behalf of the farmers. The NSPFS places the farmers at the driver's seat meaning that the farmers are in charge of their own development agenda by giving them the opportunity to determine Agricultural production enterprises of their choice through participatory and community/demand driven development approach. The pilot phase was implemented in 3 sites/LGAs across the 3 senatorial districts in each State of the Nigerian Federation and one site in the Federal Capital Territory making a total of 109 sites in Nigeria. It was expanded to cover 327 sites in 2006.

The general performances of the programme in relation with the set targets and the achievements so far include the following:

* A total of 1390 participants benefited from 689 assorted processing equipment including women who engage in processing activities.

* Carried out 30 assorted demonstrations on homestead gardening, feeding practices, and micronutrient deficiencies etc.

* Completed the renovation of the 50,000 capacity fertilizer Quality Control Laboratory in Kaduna while 2 pilot communal grazing lands were rehabilitated in two states.

* A total of 655 various trainings were carried out with about 9736 beneficiaries.

* Supported about 1,357.9 hectares under irrigation farming with about 2800 beneficiaries.

* Sunk 296 Tube wells and 77 wash bores with 603 units of irrigation pumps distributed to participating farmers.

* Purchased 1000 units of 2" petrol engine pumps and 208 units of 3" diesel pumps that were distributed to farmers on cost recovery basis. 92000 meters of pvc-pipes with complete accessories were also procured.

* Drilled about 52 boreholes, 70 open wells and 5 micro earth dams to improve access to water.

* A total of 123,764 beneficiaries cultivated 13442.59 hectares under rain fed cropping with sole and mixed cropping patterns practiced.

* A total of 95 assorted field demonstration trials including replicates were carried out and the participating farmers are already adopting the extended innovations.

* About 12,764 beneficiaries benefited from agricultural inputs.

* Distributed about 5199.11 MT of fertilizers, 126 MT of micronutrient fertilizers and lime. Also distributed were 25283 litres, and 484kg of agro-chemicals, 181098 cassava bundles, 1,354,583 yam seeds and 78159 improved breeds of livestock among others.

Also, in March 2003, the Federal Government of Nigeria signed a Tripartite South-South Agreement with FAO and China within the framework of NSPFS to build and rehabilitate small-scale water control irrigation schemes. The South-South Agreement is to allow member countries to take advantage of each other's areas of excellence in agriculture to achieve food security objective and improve farmer's productivity and income. With the agreement, the services of 524 Chinese Experts and technicians are to be provided for agricultural development in the 36 states of the Federation and Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The total Cost of the programme is USD $22.4 million out of which 50% has been released by the Federal Government.

To date, more than 375 Chinese technicians including seven experts and a coordinator are in the country and deployed to all states based on need. These Chinese have started activities on various projects including small scale earth dam construction and rehabilitation, fisheries, irrigation, agro-processing, agricultural mechanization and livestock production.

In addressing gender constraints , the National Special Programme for Food Security (2002-2006) developed specific components (training, health and nutrition, among others) which focused on women, and activities for improving the access of women to resources including land, inputs, skills training, technology and other related services. This focus is also emphasized in the design of new projects to be financed under the NSPFS, with proposed modules that specifically target women.

The key achievements of the NSPFS in its pilot phase are the creation of the Women in Agriculture (WIA) program and the incorporation of the Health