Need For Paradigm Shift In Agricultural Research As Panacea To Attaining Optimum Economic Diversification

 Professor Mohammed Faguji Ishiyaku

                                                    Executive Director, Institute for Agricultural Research Samaru,

Paper presented at the Ahmadu Bello University Agric-Vet Complex Symposium on Agriculture at Mamman Kontagora Square, on The Need For Paradigm Shift In Agricultural Research As Panacea To Attaining Optimum Economic Diversification; 29th March 2021

 

Preamble

Nigeria, our dear Nation is blessed with numerous resources, among which fertile arable land and a large expanse of territorial water dot our landscapes from Bayelsa to Sokoto, from the Mandara mountains to Obudu mountains; from the plains of Yusafari to the Jos plateau. Agriculture is indispensable in our dear Nation's economy, yet we have moved from a net exporter of food and fibre at independence to a net importer. This paper will explore ways to redress this abnormal trend that should not have been allowed to happen and possibly proffer solutions, particularly on our research outlook as an instrument for development in the agricultural sector.

Published data has shown that from 1961 to 2014, global cereal production has increased by 280 percent. In that same time frame, the earth's human population increased by only 136 percent. We see that global cereal production has grown faster than the population of the world. Although the world population is growing at an alarming rate, our ability to produce food is equally impressive.

The question is, how did we achieve this global growth: Was it through land expansion or improved yields? As data have shown, increases in the cropped area have contributed only marginally. This means we use less land per person than we did sixty years ago. The reason for this achievement has been solely due to genetic improvements in cereal production. The average cereal yield has increased by 175 percent since 1961. Today, the world can produce almost three times as much cereal from a given area of land as it did in 1961. It is estimated that if we had not had innovative research in agricultural production in place since the early 1900s, we would need extra land about India's size (328 million hectares)  to produce our current world food supply. As with cereals, the world has recorded tremendous success in livestock production. Sadly, none of these is true for Africa, and especially Nigeria, where agricultural research has failed to attain the global gains explained earlier.

A closer look at Nigeria's trend revealed that cereal productivity has remained stagnated for the last 60 years with no significant difference from what it has been, even though there was some minor progress. Albeit the increase in quantum of production, analysis has indicated that these increases were majorly attained through the expansion of cropping area. It needs to be specified that the small increases recorded in national productivity are not due to the raising of productive potentials by genetic enhancement. It should be noted that the expansion in the cropping area has its attendant negative impacts, which includes but not restricted to the rapid desertification of the country, as well as the destruction of biodiversity. Therefore, the general principle should have been producing more food from less cropped area, which is attainable only through investment in agricultural research and development.

 

THE NIGERIAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH LANDSCAPE

The Colonial Era

Before independence, the British colonial administration in Nigeria established regional Agricultural research centres. The Northern regional research arm which is the great Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) at Samaru. It conducted research into cereals, legumes, fibre, oil crops, horticultural crops, forages and livestock. In the Southwest, the Southwestern Agricultural outfit at Moor Plantation Ibadan focused chiefly on root and tuber, kola nut, palm oil, cocoa, forest crops, tree crops, with no focus on livestock. Similarly, the Southeast established the Eastern Nigeria Agricultural Research Station at Ummudike with a similar focus as that of the Southwestern region. Generally, the drive for the colonial and the neo-colonial agricultural research systems were primarily focused on meeting the British colonial industrial economy's raw material needs. It was therefore no surprise that tremendous effort was targeted in the form of genetic improvement starting with the introduction of new varieties and germplasm of cash crops such as groundnut, cotton, kenaf, rubber, groundnut, citrus, mango, pineapple, banana, palm oil, wheat, barley, and Irish potato. In some instances, the improvement was targeted toward's fulfilling the colonial expatriates' dietary needs, which informed the introduction of such crops as Irish potato cauliflower and a host of other crops.

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture is the primary driver of Agricultural Research in Nigeria. About a decade after independence, there was a proliferation of Agricultural Research Institutions in the country, including an increase in the number of Agricultural Faculties that expanded the scope of agricultural research but with very little commensurate increase in agricultural investment research in the country. However, agricultural research in Nigeria is primarily dominated by the quest to produce staple crops to guarantee food security. This means that research output is often restricted to only those products that can provide immediate food for the Nigerian public leaving behind the so-called cash crops. These research institutions, especially those under the Federal Government, were loosely coordinated by the government. Their research plan may be set at the policy drafting level. Still, there are a total absence or weak quality assurance mechanisms to ensure that those policies were practicalized into the desired technologies' generation. Additionally, there is no mechanism to measure research institutes' performance and, therefore, punitive measures for those that underperformed or incentives for those that achieve the set goals. The progress made or attained by research institutions is mainly due to local scientists' spontaneous efforts with very little supervisory input from the overseeing structure.

Since the federalization of the agricultural research institutes and the creation of Agricultural universities, there has been tremendous progress in the development and release of new varieties of arable and horticultural, forest and tree crops, and intensive research in cattle, sheep, goat, pigs and poultry and fisheries, and the development of animal vaccines. In the same vein, active research is on-going in socioeconomics and policy research, extension research, agro-processing, and storage technologies research, resulting in the design and fabrication of various types of simple machines and implements for the use of resource-poor farmers across the country. All these lofty goals were attained through a highly participatory process involving a large number of different stakeholders in the private sector and international organizations.

Despite this progress, domestic production of grains, livestock, and forest products has not kept up with the Nigerian populace's domestic consumption demands. The average yield of our most demanding staple crops in Nigeria are as follows: Maize = 1.68 tons/ha compared to over 10 tons/ha in the USA; The average grain yield of sorghum in farmers' field is estimated little below 1000 kg as compared to 4000 kg per hectare in the USA. In the developed world, the modern high-producing dairy cow will produce about 40 to 50 kg of milk per day in early lactation. However, the average milk yield in a traditional low-input system in the Nigerian dairy set up is 5 kg per day per cow. Published data revealed that the average annual production per cow in Nigeria is 213 litres, which is less than one-tenth of the global average.

Annual crops

The major cereal crops in Nigeria are rice, maize, sorghum, wheat, pearl, millet, sugar cane and fonio millet, with rice ranking as the sixth major crop in terms of land area. In contrast, sorghum accounts for 50% of the total cereal production and occupies about 45% of the total land area devoted to cereal production in Nigeria. The average yields for millet and sorghum have stagnated at approximately 1,000 kg/ha over the past decade and we haven't even scratched the surface of their yield potential and have a long way to go to reach their yield plateau. The story is different for maize and rice, whose average yield is well over 2,000 kg/ha. Maize average yield in Nigeria rose sharply from 1,000  kg/ha in the early 90s  to above 2,000 kg/ha in late 2000. Despite the heavy investment in wheat production by the government and other stakeholders, in 2020, only about 60 thousand tons of wheat were produced. We will need to import about 110,000 tons of durum wheat to meet our domestic demand. In general, data from Knoema revealed that in 2019, cereals production for Nigeria was
28 million tons, 4 million tons for oil crops, 16 million tons for vegetables and 1.5 million tons for Sugar cane. All these laudable achievements, albeit not sufficient, have been achieved through the diligence of the Agricultural research institutes in the country. Institutes such as IAR Samaru have developed and released for production over 46 and 62 improved varieties of sorghum and maize, respectively, over 20 varieties of groundnut and cowpea, four (4) varieties of sunflower and more products in the breeding pipelines.

The Institute (IAR Samaru) has also collaborated with local and international partners to develop and release Bt cowpea and Bt cotton to increase the productivity of these significant crops in Nigeria. Similarly, the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Umudike has been spectacular in developing and releasing root and tuber crops such as yam and cassava that are high yielding, nutritious and that have contributed immensely to the food security of our dear Nation. Other research institutes such as The National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI), Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI), The Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) and The National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT) have all contributed to improving the lots of the smallholder farmers in Nigeria. It is pertinent to note that all the achievements of these research institutes could not have been possible without the direct and indirect support from private and international partners. With the exception of root and tuber, in all instances, our domestic demand is not met, and that constantly threatens our national food security.

Forestry and Tree Crops

The genetic improvement and introduction of Forestry and Tree Crops have been mandated to six (6) Research institutes in Nigeria. The Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN) has the mandate for Forestry/Agro-Forestry, Sericulture and Wildlife; the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN), Nigerian Institute for Oil-Palm Research (NIFOR) and Rubber Research Institute of Nigeria (RRIN) are responsible for researching the genetic improvement, production and processing of Cocoa, Oil-palm, and Rubber. CRIN also conducts research on Kola, cashew, Coffee and Tea, NIFOR on other palms and RRIN on gum arabic.

 Records from the research institutes and NACGRAB revealed laudable achievements recorded which include selection, development of rapid multiplication methods and distribution of six popular savanna multi-purpose tree species such as Parkia biglobosa, selection of high yielding cocoa accessions that show resistance to Phytophthora pod rot disease, budded stumps of improved rubber clones that are high yielding, and second cycle breeding populations of superior oil-palm. All these have been produced on demand to meet farmers' and processors needs.

Livestock

In Nigeria, three (3) research institutes National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI), National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI), and Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research (NITR) have the national mandate to conduct research into all aspects of animal genetic improvement, animal diseases, their treatment and control; and to develop and produce animal vaccines to meet national demand. The research institutes, particularly NAPRI, are focused on improving the productivity potentials of various breeds and livestock and poultry types such as cattle, sheep, goat, pigs, and poultry. Laudable achievements recorded in these sectors include developing NAPRI "Shika Brown" parent layers, promoting artificial insemination techniques, adapting quail birds and developing a local approach for hatching ostrich eggs. Others include providing grass and legume forages for effective range management. Intensive research has been focused in identifying local herbs for possible control livestock diseases such as coccidiosis in chickens, the attenuation of Peste des petits ruminants (PPR), also known as 'goat plague' virus for vaccine production, local formulation for the control of dermatophilosis, a common animal skin disease in cattle, in addition to pharmaceutical preparations for control of coccidiosis. Other achievements include Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for the tsetse and trypanosomiasis.

Fisheries

The Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR) and the National Institute for Freshwater Research (NIFFR) have been mandated with conducting research on marine and freshwater fisheries which include both capture and aquaculture fishing systems, the development of fingerling production, identification of alternative fish feed sources, selection of proper gear and on-farm evaluation of smoking kiln technologies.

From the foregoing, it can be seen that we have all it takes to improve our national productivity. We need commitment and the political will, and the innovative drive to break the shackles holding us back as a prosperous nation. It is pertinent to note that the first line of bridging the production and productivity gap we face is through agricultural research investment. Since the problems have been identified, then it is up to us to go back to the drawing table and centre our attention on attaining goals that we set for ourselves. I am confident that a combination of genetics and management practices will help in no small measure to increase the yield potential in all aspects of our production.

However, the current means of funding research relies on the federal government's annual budget which ends from one year to another making it impossible for researchers to design research activities that can go beyond one year and with that it is not possible to make reasonable progress or to generate a technology that can solve national problems so therefore there is the need for stakeholders to devise means of funding research on a sustainable basis expanding through a minimum of three to five years and then some for long-term researches for 10 years, the funds can be domiciled in a national foundation or a fund where a board of trustees will be able to monitor from time to time the utilization of this fund targeted towards meeting critical national technology needs.

Staff Strength

In terms of investments in human resources, Nigeria has one of the highest concentrations of Agricultural Research Scientists and the most extensive National Agricultural Research Systems in Africa, with over 80 government and high education institutes and over 2,000 researchers engaged in research. The total number of agricultural researchers employed in Nigeria more than quadrupled from 337 full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers in 1971 to 2,062 FTEs in 2008. The majority of this increase took place in the higher education sector. Disaggregated data illustrate that Nigeria's research capacity has been strengthened over time. Although there has been a significant increase in the number of FTE researchers in the country, this increase is not commensurate with the output expected, especially when it is compared with the number of scientists in, let's say, South Africa. This is due to:

1. Not all the researchers have access to funds for research except those in conventional government Research Institute
2. Research conducted are often not targeted towards solving agricultural development issues directly, and that many of these are basic and often repetitive. For the livestock industry, efforts have so far been targeted primarily towards animal nutrition and health, but the basic and most fundamental one is animal genetic improvement which has been given very little attention. This fact is indicated by the number of indigenously improved breeds of animals registered and commercialized. No wonder then, when one checks indigenous breeds of cattle and poultry, we can't boast of any breed that can compete internationally in terms of beef, dairy, or any animal product.
3.  Many scientists are not trained enough to deploy modern scientific research tools, thus reducing their potential capacity to conceive research critical to national development and execute them effectively. There is a need in the research funding, as an integral part of the national research funding mechanism, to create a sustainable component for training and retraining of research scientist and technical staff on the use and deployment of modern scientific tools in their research.

FUNDING

In addition to human resources, financial resources are the next most critical input for effective agricultural research systems. The analysis of the financial investment into agricultural research in Nigeria shows a progressive increase over the yes. This increase is primarily due to expansion in human resources rather than per capita scientists spending in research. Data obtained revealed that the Federal Government budgetary allocation to the Agricultural Research Institutions averaged N28 billion yearly ($78 million) in the last five years. In this allocation, almost 80 - 90 percent goes into salaries and emoluments; only about 10 to 20 percent goes into research. In this share allocated solely to research, about 60-70 percent is allocated to physical infrastructures such as buildings and purchases of vehicles leaving a paltry 30-40 percent allocated to research operations. These figures are far below the budget made available to agricultural scientists in the BRICS countries. The total agriculture research expenditure as a percentage of agriculture GDP in the BRICs economies revealed that Brazil spends 1.82%, Russia (3.1%), India (0.30) and China (0.62), as well as South Africa (3.06). Data from Agricultural  Science  &  Technology  Indicators (ASTI) in 2017 revealed that Nigeria has one of the lowest agricultural research spendings as a percentage of Agricultural GDP with 0.35% instead of the required 1-2%.  The funding for Agricultural Research is also erratic, with no adequate consideration of the time-bound nature of research activities in most policy decisions.  This funding constraint makes it difficult for researchers to be responsive to their clientele's needs and compounds the challenge of the long gestation of research.

The general agricultural output landscape going by these existing situations needs to be appreciated well for even turning out those modest achievements outlined above. Even though it needs to be pointed out, these supplementary supports of the CGIAR consortium have also gone back a long way in providing additional strength to the agricultural research output. Although progress has been made, it can be seen that this progress is not good enough in bridging up at the least our national demand for rice, cowpea, maize, wheat in the case of our staples with a huge deficit yet to be filled up. Similarly, for livestock and livestock products, our national demand is nowhere close to being met. Currently, Nigeria consumes about 1.3 billion tons of milk each year, which is a massive market for locally produced milk and dairy products. However, data from the  Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that about 60% of dairy products consumed are imported which is between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion annually. Data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) showed that the Nigerian livestock industry contributes to 18 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the agricultural sector, which is worth over N33 trillion. In 2019, total meat production stood at 1.48 million tons but about 30 percent of slaughtered animals were purchased from abroad, mainly from neighbouring countries such as Cameroon, Chad, Mali, and Niger Republics. Similar productivity gap trends are observed in the beef, forestry, and fishery sectors of our economy.

 

THE PARADIGM SHIFT

From the foregoing, it becomes imperative to strengthen our research quality assurance and control mechanisms. The supervisory body for coordinating agricultural research in Nigeria should be supported enough to design agricultural research program and activities target specifically towards achieving national self-sufficiency in staples and the development of products for the international market. The ARCN was established in 2006 with a mandate to coordinate, supervise and regulate agricultural research, training and extension in Nigeria. In addition, ARCN serves as research managers and offers policy advisory services to Nigeria's Federal Government on Agricultural research and development. Since its establishment, the Council has undergone several re-organizations, which has amounted to nothing but instability in its structure and functions. For the Council to function effectively, there is a need to transform and equip the Council with the capacity to plan research programmes for achieving technology-driven increases in agricultural production and productivity. A Bill is in the Senate which aims to empower the Council to be well-positioned in meeting Nigeria's agriculture sector's increasing demands.

The ARCN should be enabled to go out of the 18 conventional research institutes to fund additional agricultural research through a competitively bid funding mechanism, with such research targeted towards ameliorating serious national agricultural production and utilization programs. ARCN should be empowered to establish research standards and benchmark-setting for assessing achievements by Research Institute. The current practice of 'anything goes' should be stopped. Nonperforming scientists and institutions should be held accountable. In the same vein, performing scientists and institutions should be incentivized. This can be achieved true setting up a highly transparent rating system for the scientist such that and A-rated scientists will enjoy certain privileges as preferential access to funds. Any A-rated institutions should be made to enjoy some corporate benefits relative to its counterpart in the country. These privileges may include access to resources to expand their existing infrastructure and hire additional staff etc. Finally, there is the need for ARCN to invest more in setting research priorities and ensuring their implementation leveraging on stakeholder consultation approach.

Having highlighted the negative effect of continuous increase of cropped area as opposed to raising productivity per unit area, it begs the need for a unique approach to raising our national productivity by harnessing our God-given resources.  This human capital, among others, will help us achieve our goals of increasing our national productivity. Although there is a lack of data to show how many FTE researchers have Ph.Ds. especially in the research institutions, indicators are that there are still many scientists without a PhD. This will no doubt reduce the scientific capacity of the research system. In other instances, there is a shortage of scientists in many areas of specialization. Even for the PhD holders, there is a gap in their capacity to utilize research inputs, including potential modern research tools, effectively. Therefore, the government must develop a robust program of aggressively filling up these gaps such that a modern and strong team of scientists evolve to take up the challenges of raising our national agricultural productivity. These should include conventional training in MSc and PhDs, special bench fellowships to improve scientists' capacity to deploy modern scientific tools.

No country has a limitless amount of funds for its research systems. Therefore, what is critical is the availability of funds and the creation of a system that will enable the funds to be effectively utilized for the purpose it is put in place. The current funding arrangement favours production at the expense of research. This is because the funding's annual in nature and more suitable for funding production activities. The research activities are typically conducted on a medium to long-term basis, two years, three years, five years, etc. Any research manager that approves the conduct of research spanning two to three years is only sticking his neck unnecessarily without provisions of the funds. An agricultural research fund should be established in order to alleviate the problems of annual funding for national agricultural research. The recent bill before the Senate on the national agricultural Development Fund can equally be engineered to finance agricultural research as part of national agricultural development substantially.

The agricultural research landscape has the preponderance of federal government activities and very few state research outfits. However solid and sustainable it has been, the future may be very challenging. Therefore, they need to create a conducive environment for the active participation of the private sector. At the moment, there is a minimal incentive for the private sector to invest in agricultural research. One of the most crucial incentives is for research products to be made to reflect their true commercial potential. Technologies such as sales of seeds and seedlings should be managed such that developers of technology can harness their full economic potential. Alternatively, the government can set up an effort to encourage the establishment of private research outfits by outsourcing specific categories of research to them—for example, special foods product, ways of developing rapid multiplication of planting materials etc.

Finally, it is my firm belief that if the National Research management and quality assurance system is revolutionized, it will change the peace of agricultural research, especially in the public sector there is no doubt that the critical national economic development in Nigeria lies in food security and the key to food security let's do a greater extent in a cohesive national agricultural research and development.

Deliberate efforts to enhance the national agricultural research team's scientific capacity as well as the deployment of an innovative and flexible com funding system compatible with traditions of conducting research globally. If the private sector occupies its natural position in agriculture, research will result in an ultimate quest to raise the threshold of agricultural systems.