Bayelsa LGA Profiles
TRANSFORMING BAYELSA
INTO
A MAJOR AGRICULTURAL AND AGRIBUSINESS STATE
BY
AVM LARRY KOINYAN (Rtd)
CHAIRMAN
BAYELSA STATE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY
INTRODUCTION
A
people who cannot feed themselves are an enslaved people. A nation that cannot grow and develop its
agriculture stunts its growth and development in all other areas. Agriculture is one of humankind’s oldest professions. If we cannot take part satisfactorily in an
area where there is so much history, information, knowledge and expertise what
claim do we have to being a people and a nation. The choice is ours in Bayelsa State. Let us do the proper thing and do it
right. We start by setting the right and
proper objectives for our agricultural development. We then plan meticulously and work
assiduously to achieve the objectives we set for ourselves.
OBJECTIVES
We
set the following objectives for ourselves:
To
give agriculture the pride of place as the prime mover of sustainable economic
growth and development and social stability in the State.
To
seriously and truly diversify the State economy away from oil and gas.
To
contribute to food security both in our rural communities and urban centres in
the State.
To
be a major contributor to the nation’s food basket.
To
help create wealth for the people of the State and to contribute significantly
to the State’s GDP.
To
expand employment opportunities and honest income earning possibilities in the
State.
To
provide needed raw materials for an agriculture based industrialisation in the
State.
Reciprocally
to jump start a Bayelsa State based industrial development process that will
provide the tools, equipment and other inputs the agricultural sector itself
will need to continue to expand its own activities.
To
exploit the land, water and forestry resources of the State.
To
earn foreign exchange through the exportation of agricultural produce and
products.
Reciprocally
to save foreign exchange by progressively limiting the importation of
agricultural produce and products.
To
contribute to a more efficient and effective management of the very delicate
Bayelsan environment and ecosystem.
To
contribute to a more incisive and fast-tracked development process in the State’s grassroots communities and rural
areas.
To
raise the prestige of the Ijaw person and the Bayelsan as a productive being
and not a sole dependant on oil and gas which had indeed caused him/her more
trauma than joy.
3. There is need for everybody to note that
those who think small and narrowly achieve very little or even nothing in life.
Besides there is nothing in the above schematic outline that is or can be
beyond us. Any way development is not for the faint-hearted. The focused and
determined will always succeed. We also need strategic thinking.
4. To ensure we succeed there will be a
series of programmes to bring all the above into fruition. The key lies: in
identifying in a deliberate, conscious and effective manner all value chain
developmental activities/processes in all agricultural sub-sectors, to do all
of these in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner; in providing
appropriate support services at optimal levels for each sub sector’s efficient growth; in tackling all the
attendant structural, institutional, technical, technological, organisational,
cultural, socio-economic and environmental challenges to move agriculture at
all levels in the State from a predominantly subsistence activity into a
foremost commercial venture; and simultaneously taking aggressive development
action in mutually reinforcing areas like grassroots community and rural
development, adult literacy and functional education, grassroots community
members’ orientation,
motivation, organisation and mobilisation for development, agro-based
industrial and other real sector productive activities in the State; and in
mobilising all available resources in the State for the successful execution of
the programme.
5. We need to remind ourselves that before
oil, agriculture was indeed the mainstay of our nation’s economy and a major source of wealth
and employment for a large part of the population. We did not in those days
have the very high levels of hunger, poverty, unemployment, hardships and
deprivations that we have now, as we delude ourselves about our oil wealth and
stoke our primitive accumulation tendencies. Let us do the most needful,
namely, put agriculture back as our top priority development endeavour in at
least our State.
6. Let our agricultural revolution and
pre-industrialisation process begin in Bayelsa State! We start with three programmes,
as our contribution, in addition to doing all the things Government expects
Badevco to do when the State Governor inaugurated its Board.
PROGRAMME NO 1:
COMMUNITY LEVEL AGRICULTURAL COMMERCIALISATION AND
AGRIBUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
This
is a Badevco/Grassroots Communities’ agricultural partnership programme
whose primary aim is to commercialise agriculture and develop agribusiness at
the level of all grassroots communities in Bayelsa State.
This
programme is considered the No. 1 top priority agricultural programme for
Badevco and Bayelsa State for a number of reasons. Firstly, the bulk of our
farmers and fisher folks live in our grassroots communities. (They also have a
very intimate knowledge of their local environment). The bulk of our lands,
water bodies and forests and their combined mind-boggling resources are also in
and around these same grassroots communities. However in spite of this
phenomenally huge resource base, farming and fishing activities are still
predominately subsistent in our State even in this 21st century. There are a
host of reasons for this situation. They include cultural/orientational,
structural/institutional, socio-economic/organisational,
technical/technological, environmental/ecological challenges. To these should
be added the challenges of ageing farmers and fisher folks, small farm holdings
scattered in far away areas, dearth of access/all season feeder roads, near
comatose extension services.
All
these must change. Badevco in this No. 1 programme will partner with all the
States grassroots and rural communities to bring about this change by
deliberately, consciously, systematically, efficiently and effectively
contributing to transforming agriculture and agribusiness in all these
communities from a subsistence into a viable and very competitive commercial
venture.
Secondly,
the natural progression of agricultural development is said to be a movement
from subsistence farming to diversified/mixed farming and ultimately to
specialised farming. There is hardly as of today any community in the State in
which the full range of agricultural sub-sectors possibilities is ever fully
exploited. By deliberate planning and execution and depending on existing
edaphic conditions the members of each community can be re-orientated to be
involved in as many agricultural sub sectors as possible to more fully
transform agriculture in each community from a low productive subsistence
activity to a predominating diversified/mixed commercial venture.
As
a natural progression, it is possible that in some communities some progressive
farmers may already be deeply involved in diversified/mixed agriculture. This
will be most welcome and indeed such movement from subsistent to
diversified/mixed commercial farming in very quick and mass progression will be
encouraged. The systematic but fast-paced development of agribusiness in each
community will also be encouraged.
It
is only when as many agricultural sub-sectors and agribusinesses are firmly
established and thriving as predominant and foremost commercial ventures in
each of the grassroots communities in our State would we have laid the very
much required solid foundation for us to meet most of our agricultural
transformation and development objectives. For instance, we would be food secure.
Bayelsans will create wealth for themselves and by themselves. Employment and
income earning opportunities will be expanded in the State. Bayelsa will be
contributing food to the national food basket and agricultural produce and
products to the national economy. Bayelsans and the State can earn foreign
exchange through the export of agricultural products, with value addition. Most
importantly, when firmly and properly established, grassroots community members
will sooner than later realise that this should indeed be their way of life
rather than a programme to be run by Government.
Thirdly,
Bayelsa has only 8 federally recognized LGA’s, which severally limits what it gets
from the Federation Account at that level and therefore limits what is
available for expenditure. We need to help our State and ourselves by
deliberately creating many more areas of dynamic growth and development,
particularly the creation of wealth. By
commercialising agriculture and developing agribusiness in our State’s almost 900 grassroots communities we
will be contributing to the achievement of this important objective.
To
bring about this most desirable situation we proceed by doing some very
detailed preparatory ground work. Then
we give some equally detailed guidelines on execution. Therefore we execute in
a most cost conscious and successful manner.
PREPARATORY WORK
As part of our preparation we take the following
steps:
Step 1: Open a Community Agricultural
Commercialisation and Agribusiness Development Electronic file so that each of
the States almost 900 communities will be identified by an alpha-numeric code
and a grid reference as well as the agro-ecological zone the community is
located in. This will serve subsequently as the depository of all growth and
development information, data and statistics for each grassroots community.
Step 2: Visualise each of these grassroots
communities as a major agricultural production and valorisation centre. (This
is very important because what you see in your mind’s eye, you can more easily bring into
concrete reality. Start with your own grassroots community, particularly if you
go home often).
Step 3. Leaving nothing to chance reconfirm all
the various sub-sectors of agriculture and their various sub sub-sectors of
agriculture as the case may be. See Annex A
Step 4. Identify the entire value chain of each
of the above, from production to sale and/or consumption.
Step 5. Identify how to efficiently and
effectively bring into operational being each phase/stage in each value chain,
as well as institutions/organisations that can help us do this.
Step 6. Identify all needed support services
common to all sub-sectors and those peculiar to individual sub-sectors.
Step 7. Identify how each of these support
services can be efficiently and effectively brought into being so that each
sub-sector can grow and develop in each community.
Step 8. Identify and outline possible solutions
to the various challenges agricultural commercialisation and agribusiness
development can possible face at the grassroots communities level, as well as
the institutions/organisations that can help us do this.
Step 9. Identify all the various inputs
required to be made available as and when due for each agricultural sub-sector.
Step 10. Outline how each of these inputs will be
made available directly to farmers as and when due and at what price/cost.
Step 11. Identify the simple tools, equipment,
machinery, etc. the agricultural sector will need from the industrial sector to
facilitate the rapid growth and the maintenance of the growth of the
commercialisation of agriculture and the development of agribusiness at the
grassroots community level.
Step 12. Outline how these simple tools,
equipment, machinery, etc. will be made available and kept serviceable for use
at the grassroots community level.
Step 13. Specifically on valorisation, identify
the various ways on how to store and preserve, process and package agricultural
produce and food materials at the grassroots community level.
Step 14. Specifically on marketing and
distribution, promote programmes that: identify, establish and link up
rural/community markets; provide
effective market information services; expand market outlets (intra and inter
Sectoral, Communal, Zonal, State, Regional, National, International); encourage
appropriate authorities to provide and keep serviceable rural feeder roads,
water ways, canals, jetties; ensure the availability of an effective rural
transportation system (manual trucks, wheel-barrows, bicycles, tricycles,
minivans, river-craft, trucks/lorries): ensure the reduction to the barest
minimum of intra and inter seasonal fluctuations of available agricultural
produce and products, food and food materials; ensure that primary producers
get a fair price for their effort and in the same context reduce to reasonable
limits the very high disparity between what primary producers get paid for
their labour and the very unreasonable prices consumers pay.
Step 15. Ensure the availability at the grassroots
community level of extension services.
Step 16. Ensure the compilation and production of
unified extension pamphlets, manuals for use at the grassroots community level
to cover production, valorisation, marketing and distribution for all
agricultural sub-sectors.
Step 17. Ensure the compilation of a cropping
calendar in the production cycle of agricultural produce in the State and its
availability for use in all our grassroots communities.
Step 18. Take actions that will ensure credit is
available to all those who require it and reciprocally that all those who avail
themselves of this facility also meet all requirements stipulated, including
and particularly the requirement to pay back loans as and when due. Everybody
must be reminded that commercial agriculture is a business and therefore should
be conducted as such.
Step 19. Take actions that will ensure all-year
round agricultural production, for instance through small scale irrigation schemes.
Step 20. Take actions that will ensure
agricultural produce, food materials, food etc. fairs are held regularly in the
State.
Step 21. Take all necessary actions to
promote/strengthen the participation of all appropriate public and private
sector organisations and institutions at relevant steps and phases of this
massive and indeed revolutionary effort: agriculture and agriculture-related
MDAs; agriculture and agriculture related research institutions and
organization; agriculture and
agriculture related faculties of tertiary institutions; relevant sections of
the organised private sector, the informal sector; all community members
interested in agricultural development and wealth creation for themselves.
Step 22. Take all necessary actions to ensure that
the large army of our unemployed youth and other able-bodied men and women
participate in the programme.
Step 23. Take all necessary action to promote the
participation of all retired Bayelsans who show real seriousness and desire to
participate.
Step 24. Take all necessary action to promote even
serving civil and public servants to participate as a prelude for eventual
separation from active service or even when still in service.
Step 25. Take all necessary action to monitor all
Bayelsans reading agriculture and agriculture-related subjects with a view to
getting them to use their knowledge in productive activities as against their
joining the army of job seekers.
Step 26. To identify all Bayelsans with any
experience or expertise at whatever level in agriculture and related fields and
to encourage them to bring their knowledge and expertise to bear on the
programme.
Step 27. Take necessary action to encourage
educational institutions, where possible to have school farms or at least
vegetable gardens where land availability is a serious constrain.
Step 28. Take necessary action to mobilise local,
national and international NGOs, foreign missions operating in Nigeria,
development partners and UN agencies operating in Nigeria and any other
possible partnership to contribute whatever they can to the success of the
programme.
Step 29. While all the above are going on in the
agricultural sector, take all necessary vigorous action to promote the
establishment and ensure the efficient and functional operation of all possible
agribusinesses and agro based home, cottage and small scale rural industrial
activities in each grassroots community.
Step 30. For immediate impact and indeed in
genuine Badevco contribution to current flood victims relief and rehabilitation
prepare a programme of Fadama Dry Season Agricultural Cultivation using fast
yielding crops (maize, okra, ugu etc).
Step 31. Consolidate all of the above into a
series of community level Agricultural Commercialisation and Agribusiness
Development Action (Execution) Plans: Programme Advocacy; Community Orientation
and Motivation, Organisation and Mobilisation; Commercial Crops and Food
Materials Production, Valorisation, Marketing and Distribution; Commercial
Fisheries; Horticulture; Agro-Forestry; Forestry, Forestry Resources, Wildlife,
Agricultural Input Supplies; Credit; Agricultural Support Services (crops,
extension, R&D, ICT, Irrigation, Land Development and Management)
agricultural economics, data, statistics, provision and maintenance of rural infrastructure;
provision of locally fabricated/adapted simple agricultural tools, equipment
and machines.
Step 32. State in clear simple terms how
communities can participate in each programme of each agricultural sub-sector.
Step 33. Put in place an effective and efficient
performance monitoring and evaluation system to keep everybody on their toes
and to ensure only one outcome, namely: programme success.
EXECUTION
As part of execution we take the following steps:
Step 1: Open a Community Level Agricultural Commercialisation
and Agribusiness Development website and have all the above information down
loaded into to, but make this information inaccessible to the public until
later in Step 6.
Step 2: Appoint and brief a website coordinator
and management team, emphasising the aim of the programme as a systematic
grassroots process for laying the very much required solid foundation to jump
start and sustain agricultural revolution in Bayelsa State, specifically to
ensure that each of the States almost 900 grassroots communities engage in as
many agricultural sub sector programmes as possible and on a commercial basis.
Step 3: Transfer to this website all the
information in the hitherto opened community agricultural commercialisation and
agribusiness electronic file for all communities in the State.
Step 4: Test the website and its management by
doing the following:
Using
the media, most particularly radio, call the attention of all community members
to the existence of their individual electronic file.
Inform
them to check that their community is duly registered and that the name of
their community is properly spelt.
Tell
them to note their community code and the grid reference of their community
location.
Provide
a short brief in the website as to what all of this is about.
Step 5: Take a week’s break for the Board Committee’s Members on Community Level
Agricultural Commercialisation and Agribusiness Development and Performance
Monitoring and Evaluation and the website coordinator and his/her team to
evaluate the test run of the website. Make any necessary adjustments. Check the
State of readiness of individual programmes in the various sub-sectors and
brace up for a smooth take-off.
Step 6: Programme Take Off: Put the entire programme in the public domain,
using the media effectively (but at prudent cost) by now making easily
accessible all the information that was withheld in Step 1. Check all
programmes in each sub-sector again and be prepared now to engage the
communities in programme execution participation.
Step 7: Programme
Participation Execution Management: Although the programme is at the
initiative and intensive promotion of Badevco, the initiative to participate
must come from members of each community either as individuals, identifiable
groups or co-operatives in the community who are interested and serious in taking
advantage of as many aspects of the programmes they think they can successfully
manage. The conditions set out for each sub sector’s programmes for participation will
then be discussed with each community group. Once agreement is reached and an
MOU signed, participation should commence without any delay, since Badevco is
expected to have done all necessary preparatory work to be ready for action.
Step 8: Performance
Monitoring and Evaluation:
The PME team will
carry out its function as outlined in its terms of reference to achieve its two
objectives of keeping everybody on their toes and to ensure only one outcome:
programme success.
Step 9: Maintenance
of Momentum:
Everything should be
done to ensure that there are no lulls in agricultural and agribusiness
activities all through the year in any participating community. Indeed given the wide variety of possible
activities in each agricultural/agribusiness sub-sector and the number of the
sub-sectors and given the possibility that different individuals and groups
will be doing different things that would create wealth for them, it is
difficult to imagine that there will be any more dull moments in any grassroots
community. The pattern of life in our
communities and our rural areas will definite begin to change. This will be concrete reality as this
programme will restore hope in our community members and rural areas. What needs be done is to help our people have
more confidence in themselves and be far much more self-reliant and
entrepreneurial.
Step 10: Sustainability:
There are two
challenges here. The first is that we
tend to allow programmes to die as soon as the governments that put them in
place leave office. We do this even to
good programmes. The second challenge is
that we are far, far too dependent on government for virtually everything. To ensure that this programme survives,
irrespective of which government is in office and irrespective of who is in
Badevco, we must from the very beginning plan and execute this programme in
such a way that community members will see it as something that is very
beneficial to them and therefore will ensure that it survives governments and
officialdom.
The key is to try to
get the programme run on a virtual auto pilot, where community members can get
what they need, where they need it, when they need it and at a cost that leaves
them with some profit margin. The
private sector through proper orientation, motivation, organisation;
mobilisation and directional guidance can generate enough entrepreneurial
momentum to ensure that this programme not only survives us all, but continues
with coming generations. It is our duty to make this happen.
Besides to cultivate
the land is a divine injunction to humankind from the very beginning and
therefore to all generations. So also is
hard work a divine injunction to all humankind and to all generations. It is only when we learn to create value
and/or provide a service (not treasury looting) that we give real meaning to
our lives. And it is when we pass this
on to our children and our children’s children that we bring to full circle
the true meaning and purpose of our lives and our existence.
Step 11: Community
and Rural Development:
To get the most
optimal benefits from this effort to lay a very solid foundation at the
grassroots community level for the long desired agricultural revolution in
Bayelsa State, we must take very strong and sustained advocacy action to ensure
the pursuit of the complementary and mutually supporting and strengthening
programme to agricultural development, namely, a very comprehensive and robust
Grassroots Community and Rural Development Programme.
A very comprehensive
and robust grassroots community and rural development programme with very
strong components of adult literacy and functional education, environmental
management, rural industrialisation and other productive activities and
services, and the provision and maintenance of rural infrastructure will do a
number of things. A robust programme of
adult literacy and functional education will provide at the grassroots
community level a large army of literate people who will be better farmers,
fisher folks, rural industrialists and entrepreneurs. A robust programme of community level environmental
management will not only conduce a more environmentally friendly agrarian
processes and practices but will also constitute a knowledgeable frontline
corps of soldiers who can skillfully moderate far more beneficially and produce
far more lasting results from the reaction between man and the very delicate
Bayelsan ecosystem/ecology.
Rural
industrialisation and other productive activities and services, partnering and
mutually supporting and strengthening one another would further create more
job, income earning and wealth creating opportunities at the grassroots
community level. The provision and
maintenance of rural infrastructure will not only dovetail into but will also
expand the reach of the current government’s effort at massive infrastructural
development in the State. Besides the provision and maintenance of feeder
roads, jetties, canals, the provision of potable water and sanitation
facilities and the expansion of rural electrification programmes, (all known
strong components of rural infrastructure) will not only boost agricultural
development but will also overtime transform our grassroots communities
progressively and certainly into dynamic and fast growing and developing
entities (A lot of work has also been done in all of the above)
Step 12: Funding:
Mobilise funding from all possible
legitimate sources, with the clear understanding that there will be no room for
financial leakages. The best practices
of prudent financial management will always apply.
PROGRAMME NO. 2:
PROMOTIONAL ASSISTANCE TO INCREASE IN
BAYELSA STATE THE NUMBER OF FARMS:
Taking off from the
agricultural development progression outlined in paragraph 10, the next logical
step after Programme NO.1 will be to take all necessary promotional action to
increase within Bayelsa State the number of:
·
diversified/mixed
commercial farms
·
specialised
commercial farms
PROGRAMME NO. 3:
PROMOTIONAL ASSISTANCE TO SERIOUS BAYELSAN FARMERS OUTSIDE
BAYELSA STATE (LONG TERM?)
Programmes
No. 1 and 2 are designed to consolidate agricultural and agribusiness development
in Bayelsa State by Bayelsans. Should we also not go out of our way to
encourage serious minded Bayelsans engaged in agriculture and other related
endeavours outside Bayelsa State to also consolidate or expand? It is worth
considering.
EXHORTATION
May
God help us in this endeavour to help move our people and our State forward,
and as we contribute our quota to current State Government’s Restoration Agenda.
DECISIONS SOUGHT
The
Board is required to consider and approve:
The
objectives set for the agricultural development function assigned Badevco.
The
programmes proposed specifically by Badevco to achieve the objectives set.
The
urgent application for funds budgeted for this Programme, while detailed
tasking and costing are worked out.
AVM L.D. KOINYAN (Rtd)
CHAIRMAN, BADC
26th January 2013
ANNEX A Agric Sub
Sectors
v Crops - All crops grown in the State and any others grown anywhere else
that has the same climatic and agro ecological characteristics like Bayelsa:
Food, Oil, Cash, Fibre Crops.
(All Crop
Related Research Institutes)
v Fisheries
- Capture Fisheries: All Modes
-
Aquaculture: All Modes
(NIOMR and All
Fisheries Research Institutes)
v Horticulture
- Fruit Trees: All Possibilities
- Spices
- Vegetables: All Possibilities; All Year Round
- Market
and Kitchen Gardens
- Flowers:
All Possibilities
(NIHORT,
IBADAN; SUB STATION, OKIGWE)
v Livestock - Poultry
(All Possibilities); Piggery; Rabbitry/Grass Cutter; Snailry; Sheep and Goat;
Cattle Fattening
(All
Livestock Related Research Institutes)
v Agro Forestry - All
Possibilities; Silviculture; Establishment of woodlots; Sericulture;
Apiculture; Game Cropping; Integrated Orchard/Livestock Production; Organic
Manure/Mushroom Production.
v Food Security - At
the family and community levels and at the level of the State, with
contributions from all sub sectors. Also food self-sufficiency in specific
areas at the community and State levels.
In the Short, Medium and Long Term: Specify, how to maintain any level
that is attained.
v Raw Materials Extraction -
From all Sub Sectors: All Possibilities: Specify those we can run with
immediately, in the short, medium and long term.
v Forestry - Forests (Vast Variety of Species); Importance of Forests; Forest
Resources/Forest Products (Vast Array);
v Wetlands - Importance/Functions; Misuse/Destruction; Wetland Resources
v Wildlife - Wide Variety and Large Numbers of Animals, Birds, Insects, etc
in the Wild: Uses/Functions
v Agribusiness - In
All Agricultural Sub Sectors
ANNEX B Agricultural Support Services
v Agricultural Extension
v
Agricultural
Research
v
Agricultural
Input Supplies
v
Agricultural
Financing, Insurance, Credit
v
Agricultural
Cooperatives
v
Agricultural
Engineering & Technology
v
Agricultural
Farm Management & Accounting
v
Agricultural
Storage, Valorization, Marketing and Distribution
v
Water
for Agriculture/Irrigation
v
Agricultural
Land Consolidation, Development and Management, Soil Survey
v
Agricultural
Human Resource Development and Training
v
Organization
of Farmers, Fisher Folks, Horticulturists, Foresters, etc.
v
Veterinary
Services
v
Agricultural
Planning
v
Energy
for Agricultural Activities & Processes
v
Agricultural
Economics, Data, Statistics
v
Grassroots
Community and Rural Development
v
Agricultural
Produce/Products Pricing
v
Agricultural
Policy Stability
v Progressive Expansion of
Demand for Agricultural Products
