Encompassing ATA

 NaijaAgroNet:

 Jonathan Agenda:
AT the inception of this administration under the leadership of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, he promised Nigerians ‘transformation’ in every facet of the economy. Top on the agenda is agricultural transformation, which Nigerians know as the ‘Agricultural Transformation Agenda’ (ATA).
In line with this commitment, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) embarked on an exemplary shift in the agricultural sector with some primary focus, namely on agriculture as a business instead of a developmental project;
The Ministry among other things used the transformation of the agricultural sector to create jobs, create wealth and ensure food security. In addition, the Agricultural Transformation Agenda focuses on value chains where Nigeria has comparative advantage, coupled with sharp focus on youths and women.
NIRSAL option:  
For instance, the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) which is a loan facility that enables the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to avail about N450b (Four hundred and fifty billion Naira) to farmers through the commercial banks.
NIRSAL, apart from being an innovative mechanism to de-risk lending to the agricultural sector, has been designed, according to NaijaAgroNet reports, to provide the singular transformational and one-stop shop solution to break the seeming curse in Nigeria’s agricultural lending and development.
NaijaAgroNet recalls that the Central Bank of Nigeria had in August 2010, engaged the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to develop the NIRSAL that is being implemented. Thus, NIRSAL is an approach that tackles both the agricultural value chains and the agricultural financing value chains.
Further, NaijaAgroNet gathered that the goal of NIRSAL is to trigger an agricultural industrialization process through increased production and processing of the greater part of what is produced to boost economic earnings across the value chains.
The Role of GES:
Another instance where ATA is expected to play a major role is living up to its essence in the area of Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES), targeted at supporting 20 million farmers, having started with 5 million farmers in the year 2012, through availability of fertilizer and other requisite agro inputs.
NaijaAgroNet gathered, for instance, that the fertilizer subsidy system, which, over the years, had been hijacked by middlemen, has been totally erased with the debut of GES. Also, this means the government, after the introduction of GES, seizes to be involved in the procurement and distribution of fertilizer.
e-Wallet approach:
For the moment, NaijaAgroNet confirms that the e-wallet approach within the GES, has come into play with the recent successful trial in over 13 States of the Federation as at the time of filing this report.
So also is the development of Staple Crops Processing (SCP) zones by the Ministry with each zone having accessibility, thorough and durable road network, adequate power supply, water and telephone services to name a few, as a result, enabling access to Nigerian farm produce, locally and internationally.
Yet, another very crucial aspect or invariably focus drawn from Agricultural Transformation Agenda of the federal government is the development of private sector driven and public sector-enabled marketing corporation, which is opposed to the former marketing boards, thus helping to stabilise the price of farm produce.
FMARD mandate:
It is important to note that primarily the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) is funded by the Federal Government, superintending portfolios of 50 parastatals operating as either key departments or agencies across the country.
Out of these parastatals, FMARD has some 13 agencies, 17 Agricultural Research Institutes and 16 Federal Colleges of Agricultural Education, even as the Ministry has two main departments namely Technical and Services, respectively.
At the Technical Department, for instance, there is a unit for Agriculture cutting across Trees and Crops, Fisheries, Livestock, Land Resources, Fertilizer, Food Reserve and Storage as well as Rural Development.
And for the Services Department, it encompasses Finance, Human Resources, Procurement, Plan, Policy, Analysis & Statistics (PPAS) and Co-operatives.
EPG drums support for ATA:
It was not surprising, therefore, that global leaders drummed support for the Nigeria’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda as was depicted at the last year’s gathering of Nigeria’s Eminent Persons Group (EPG), hosted by President Goodluck Jonathan.
NaijaAgroNet gathered that the newly formed group made up of seasoned international personalities, were assembled to play advisory roles to President on activities capable of assisting in the realization of ATA in Nigeria, in addition to providing best practices in agriculture sector perspective to investment drive into the most populous nation on the continent of Africa.
The membership of the group comprises the chairman of Microsoft Corporation, Mr. Bill Gates, who is co-chairperson, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank, our own Dr. Kanayo Nwanze, who presides over the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), chairman, Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Dr. Kofi  Annan, as well as the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Fresh Del Monte Produce Incorporated, Mr. Mohammed Abu-Ghazaleh.
This was in addition to top members of President Jonathan’s Economic Coordinating team including the Honorable Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to name a few of other chief executive officers of multinational and Nigerian conglomerates.
NaijaAgroNet recalls vividly that while addressing the Nigeria’s Eminent Persons Group (EPG) in Geneva, Switzerland during the inauguration, President Jonathan made it clear that Nigeria, no doubt is undergoing changes in its agricultural sector, and pleaded for understanding and support of stakeholders.
“We have stopped viewing agriculture as a development programme, but now as a business that can assure food security, create wealth and generate jobs. Private sector investments are rising significantly as a result of our bold policy reform,” President Goodluck asserted.
He expressed confident that with the support of the private sector and the donor community, Nigeria’s agriculture will further drive economic growth and unlock new opportunities for millions of farmers and agribusiness entities.
Commenting in the same vein, the Honourable Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development , Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, reiterated that ATA offers a comprehensive government strategy to reduce the cost of food imports, diversify the economy and develop rural areas of the country, with the goal being to industrialize the sector through ensuring more productive, efficient and competitive agriculture sector.
He noted that by the end of 2018, which is four years from now, the anticipation is high that ATA will add some 20 million tonnes of food to domestic supply and create 3.5 million jobs, aside other attendant benefits of agricultural value chains to follow.
Adesina declared that President Jonathan’s leadership has been able to end decades of corruption in the fertilizer and seed sectors of Nigeria within just three months of assuming office.
“We also introduced the use of electronic wallets to deliver subsidized inputs directly to farmers through their cell phones, reaching in excess of 1.2 million farmers,” he said, maintaining that policy reforms and incentives have attracted billion dollars of private sector investment commitments to Nigeria.
He predicted that based on the success, the ATA project will soon become a model for the rest of the continent in effort to address food security and drive economic growth.

ATA exemplary path:

For the President, AfDB, Dr. Donald Kaberuka who described the path of Nigeria’s Agriculture Transformation Agenda as an exemplary for the rest of Africa, disclosing the reason AfDB is strongly drumming support for ATA.
According to him, the political will is strong and the Minister is driving innovative ideas for change, hence, “We will support Nigeria to further develop its agricultural infrastructure to ensure a positive investment climate for agribusiness.”
In living up to this promise, AfDB Board in the last quarter of 2013 approved the sum of US$152.50 Million, about N24,271 trillion financing for Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Programme (ATASP) Phase 1.
ATASP-1, he emphasised, seeks to promote employment generation and shared wealth creation along the commodity value chains, as well as food and nutrition security. Pointing out that its specific objective is to sustainably increase the income of smallholder farmers and rural entrepreneurs engaged in the production, processing, storage and marketing of the selected commodity value chains.
According to AfDB estimates, Nigeria has a huge potential in agriculture with 84 million hectares of arable land, abundant labour, untapped water resources and a market of 167 million people. However, less than 40 per cent of the arable land is cultivated and the country has become a net importer of food, spending over US$10 billion per annum in the importation of wheat, rice, sugar and fish.
But the good news is having good diagnosis and following it up with expert recommendations cum adequate medication, hence as the good people of Nigeria and the government follow this Agricultural Transformation Agenda, assiduously, it will not be long, the economic tide will change as earlier predicted by Dr. Adesina, who has overtime expressed his determination in this dream and agenda.


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