SAA President, Kitanaka, urges Nigeria to boost agro-business with new technology
In a brief chat with Neptune Prime Editorial Board Chairman, Prof MK Othman, on Thursday in Abuja, Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) President, Dr Makoto Kitanaka, from Tokyo, Japan advised that new technologies be introduced in the agricultural sector to boost agro-business n the country.
Dr Kitanaka who was on his first visit to Nigeria noted that there are lots of farmers’ groups in Nigeria but the only challenge is the lack of digitalisation.
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He said he came to Nigeria specifically to introduce new technologies that will facilitate the business of the farmers by establishing one or two digitalised farmers’ groups in Nasarawa State, through residual discussions with state governments, commissioners and the various farmers’ groups.
Speaking on the major focus of SAA in Africa and Nigeria in particular, he said their activities are mainly focused on the support of small-scale farmers which cuts across four countries – Nigeria, Uganda, Mali and Ethiopia.
According to the SAA President, they’ve started a new five-year strategic plan which includes three pillars:
1. Regenerative agriculture; “this is very important, we consider the good soil condition because good soil is the first thing to increase productivity.”
2. Nutrition sensitive agriculture; because farmers always suffer from malnutrition, SAA offers solutions from the agricultural side by offering food materials to their health conditions.
3. Market-oriented agriculture; he said farmers need to know the current information in agriculture by going to the market to know the prices of things in order to know when to produce and when to sell.
Neptune Prime reports that SAA has been in Nigeria for three decades as it was first established in 1992 in Kano State and has touched the lives of many farmers since then.
When asked about the level of support he has been getting from the Federal Government of Nigeria, he said SAA’s activities in Nigeria have been based on agreements with the Ministry of Agriculture.
Kitanaka further explained that there is a synergy between the Ministry of Agriculture and SSA as they assist in giving information that aids them to communicate better with the farmers.
“They have much more information than us and this is an important point to start our activities. With the information from the ministry, we understand the regions and then we start our activities; the state governments also give us much information and with the information, we start communications with farmers’ groups.
“We are always working with the state governments and the farmers’ groups and we continue to the national extension system with the government,” he narrated.
Also speaking, the Country Director of SAA, Prof. Sani Miko, said that SAA is currently working with 18 states in Nigeria both in the North and South and their interventions cuts across the states.
Miko explained that some states are fully funded by Nippon Foundation and some others are covered by different partnerships and programmes.
He said that SAA works in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development where they receive some funds to scale up their activities and are able to cover two states each from the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria.
SAA in partnership with the Ministry of Agric covers:
South-South – Cross River State and Rivers State
South-East – Abia and Anambra states
South-West – Ogun and Ondo states
North-Central – Benue
North-East – Bauchi and Gombe states
North-West – Jigawa and Katsina states
SAA in partnership with Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA) covers
Niger, Kaduna and Kano states.
SAA in partnership with NIPON covers Kano, Jigawa, Gombe and Nasarawa states.
Other states making up the 18 are Adamawa and Kebbi states
According to Prof Miko, farmers groups (minimum of 25 members) are usually trained by SAA’s extension agents for a number of 3-5 years, to be independent after which they move to another area and the target group is mainly women, youths and people with special needs.
Giving his takeaway message to SAA Nigeria, President Kitanaka said he observed that Nigeria has a lot of advantages compared to other countries.
He said Nigeria has sufficient energy, fertilizer companies, and vast lands and should be the leader in agriculture and provide experiences to neighbouring countries.
Kitanaka also noted that the formulation of farmers’ groups is very essential to step up farmers’ in Nigeria and also to aid market prices.
He noted that the plan SAA has for Nigeria is to:
• Provide machinery necessary to farmers’ groups to aid their work;
• Introduce digitalised extension methods to the farmers;
• Give more information within the thinking time and space and also accelerate their activities more and more.
About Sasakawa
Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) is an international agricultural development NGO that specialises in crop production enhancement, post-harvest and agro-processing, public-private partnership, and monitoring and evaluation.
SAA works with the aim to increase farmers’ income, food and nutrition security through promoting market-oriented, sustainable, resilient, regenerative and nutrition-sensitive agricultural innovations and building the capacity of Extension Agents and farmers.
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