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Nigeria: Desert-to-Food Programme
This Day (Lagos)
27 May 2007
Posted to the web 28 May 2007
Roland Ogbonnaya
Lagos
In a unique collaboration between Nigerian and Israeli companies as well as governments of both countries, the desert region of the north would be transformed into habitable and cultivable farm lands through afforestation. The idea is to reclaim the desert for productive use and assist to create abundant food production through gradual planned technological advancement. Roland Ogbonnaya writes:
Because of its geographical location, Nigeria has often been described as a country protected by God and shielded away from disasters such as earthquakes, tremors, volcanoes, tornadoes, typhoons, tsunamis, and similar violent natural phenomena that occasionally ravage some parts of the world, Africa inclusive. But, this does not mean that the country, which is one of Africa’s largest, and which ranks high among the most endowed nations in the continent, does not have enough ecological challenges.
To mitigate and deal with such natural disasters an en Inter-ministerial Committee which replaced a former committee on Shelterbelt, Aforestation, Flood, Erosion and Zone Management, a national body created by Mr. President to control adverse natural occurrences was set up. Their main responsibility is to reverse the effects of mass destructive flood and erosion in the south-eastern states, the ocean surge in the littoral states, especially Lagos, and desertification among the Border States in the upper belt of the north. These are also some of the major tasks successive federal administrations have had to grapple with.
However, of all these natural disasters, one of the problems – desertification has been on the front burner for two major reasons. One, is the fact that aided by northerly winds, the desert has been silently, but alarmingly, claiming valuable lands; and two is that an unprecedented and comprehensive approach has been adopted as solution to this degradation.
According to a recent study, desertification has to date encroached on a total land mass of 1,650 square kilometres in the 19 northern states. At the speed of 0.6 kilometres per year, the desert menace, it is feared, will in a matter of years, get to the eastern and southern regions, as well as parts of the western fringes, if not checked. Worst hit by the encroachment are the eleven frontline states like Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara, which are steadily buffeted by combined forces of north-eastern trade wind from the Sahara Desert and winds originating from the local environment.
The effect is that heavy soil particles are swept away-with no resistance due to lack of wind-breakers-and later deposited to form high desert mountains’ globally known as sand dunes. Ultimately, this phenomenon impacts negatively on the contribution of agriculture to the GDP (gross domestic product) reducing it to less than 20 per cent presently (as against the mainstay it was in the 60s when it accounted for about 70 percent). Apart from constantly forcing people to relocate away to more habitable places, desert encroachment has also led to loss of food vegetation.
It was in an effort to tackle the problem that the Federal Government, through the new inter-ministerial committee which replaced the National Council on Desertification and Aforestation, Ministries of Environment, Agriculture and Water Resources, Framan Nigeria Limited-an indigenous company with interests in the United States-and an Israeli concern, Agricultural Development Company International (Agridev) joined hands in a laudable collaboration that has also been described as revolutionary and a positive development for the nation’s agricultural sector.
The involvement of the Israeli company in the partnership is in itself remarkable, considering the awesome global reputation of the Middle-Eastern country in agricultural technology. The initiative has also been drawing commendations from within the shores of Nigeria owing to its twin targets of reversing desert encroachment as well as reclaiming the lost lands and boosting agriculture. This explains why it has been aptly dubbed the Desert-to-Food Programme.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of the agricultural revolution was signed in November 2006 between Nigeria and Israel. The Nigerian delegation to the signing ceremony include the out-going Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Alhaji Lawan Guba, Minister of Environment, Mrs. Helen Esuene, Minister of Agriculture, Alhaji Adamu Bello, Minister of State for Agriculture, Otunba Bamidele Dada and other 20 officials of the various ministries.
And, it was to effectively execute the project that Framan and its Israeli partner, Agridev, had to reach a confluence – an amalgam which is called Framan-Agridev (WA) Limited, and which has, in conjunction with the top shots of the Federal Government, the affected states, and other stakeholders, been mobilising the support of the international community, especially Israel, the US and donor agencies.
Desert-to-Food Programme, Mr. Emeka Mba, managing director of Framan and Agridev’s project co-coordinator, described it as an initiative anchored on public-private partnership arrangement, with President Olusegun Obasanjo who has been in the vanguard of wooing both the affected states while FramanAgridev woos the international communities to come on board. Obasanjo is said to be the chief driver of this project.
Before the programme was adopted as a solution to Nigeria’s desertification problem, Obasanjo had been part of an Africa Union (AU) Summit, where this unique model was given adequate attention under the Green Wall Sahara concept for countries with similar challenges.
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