“These are very interesting and amazing technologies – with these, we will overcome many of the challenges we face now.”

Organized by the Water Enabler Compact of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) in collaboration with the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, the field day brought together over 200 stakeholders from across the densely populated state in northern Nigeria.

These include the representative of Dr. Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, the state’s Deputy Governor who also heads the state ministry of agriculture, the Managing Director of Kano State Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (KNARDA) Hon. Suleiman Ibrahim who participated alongside 15 directors and Zonal Managers of his agency.

In attendance also were Directors of Engineering, Agricultural Services, Planning, and Veterinary departments of the Kano State Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (KMANR), members of the Wheat Farmers Association, women, and youth groups.

Wheat in Nigeria

With a production of 60,000 tons annually, wheat remains the least cereal produced locally in Nigeria, although widely consumed.

In 2013, the country’s wheat consumption was estimated at 4.1 million tons creating a huge market potential for wheat supply gap.

According to a December 2018 Global Agricultural Information Network report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), wheat importation to Nigeria in 2018-19 is estimated to increase by 4%.

This adds to the 5.4 million tonnes imported in 2017 thus indicating an increasing local demand for the cereal.

Wheat requires very well-drained soil, making it difficult to be grown in salty or acidic soil. The region of the country that supports wheat production includes Northern states such as Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Katsina, Yobe, Borno, Bauchi, Adamawa, Jigawa and Gombe.

However, local wheat production in Nigeria is fraught with challenges.

The variety of wheat cultivated in Nigeria is hard while the most popular types imported can’t grow in Nigeria as a result of the country’s soil and climatic condition.

Salim Mohammed, national president, Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria, identifies lack of policy framework aimed at ensuring consistent supply of high yielding varieties of modified seeds to farmers and appropriate irrigation technologies as major concerns militating against massive production of wheat across the country.

Technology as a way out

It is against this background that the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 2018, launched the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) as part of its Feed Africa Initiative.

TAAT’s main objective is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity, mitigating risks and promoting diversification and processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight Priority Intervention Areas (PIA).

The program increases agricultural productivity through the deployment of proven and high-performance agricultural technologies at scale along selected nine commodity compacts which include wheat.

These work with six enabler compacts addressing transversal issues such as soil fertility management, water management, capacity development, policy support, attracting African youth in agribusiness and fall armyworm response.

Smarting from the success stories recorded in Sudan where the TAAT Wheat Compact deployed a number of high yielding heat tolerant wheat varieties at scale (Imam, Goumria, Zakia, Elnielain and Bohaine) with a production potential of 5-8 t / ha and more than 26,000 tons of certified seeds produced and distributed to more than 260,000 wheat farmers, TAAT is already poised to transform Nigeria’s wheat sector.

Dr Solomon Assefa, the TAAT wheat compact leader identifies the lack of improved wheat seed in sufficient quantity and quality at affordable price as a key factor contributing to the poor adoption and weak performance of wheat in Nigeria.

These and many more prompted the scaling up of heat-tolerant wheat technologies to farmers in Nigeria.

“The technologies comprised many new wheat varieties with heat and drought tolerance, and stem rust resistance. These traits allow for expansion of wheat production in Nigeria, Assefa said.

“TAAT is fast-tracking this next generation variety release through national programs, offering expertise in land preparation including raised beds, furrow and deficit irrigation, and sprinkler systems, and promoting low-cost mechanized planting within conservation agriculture,” he added.

The TAAT Wheat Compact is led by International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) while International Water Management Institute (IWMI) leads the TAAT Water Enabler Compact.

The TAAT Water Compact promotes low-cost and easy-to-deploy irrigation and water management technologies to small-scale farmers across Africa.

The water-wheat nexus

Teacher. Henry Igbadun who coordinates the TAAT Water Enabler Compact (TAAT-WEC) in Nigeria disclosed during the Field Day that the program is currently training 30 farmers and 10 extension workers in Kano State on proven water management technologies.

“Our target here is to scale up proven tools, technological solutions and innovations in irrigation and agricultural water management to increase productivity and production of wheat, rice and Sorghum,” Igbadun said.

“It is also to build the capacity of trainers, including innovation platform facilitators, extension agents, champion farmers and youths in the proper use of irrigation and water management technologies and implementation of good irrigation management practice.”

According to Igbadun, the initiative is also aimed at attracting investment from public and private sources into irrigated agricultural production of wheat, rice and sorghum through the demonstration of viability and profitability of irrigation technologies.

He added that, “traditionally, water is lifted from the tube well using centrifugal pumps and allowed to run by gravity on soil surfaces to the crop field.

“This method, he continued, is not only tedious, but it takes a longer time to irrigate the fields, more hours of running the irrigation pumps, higher water conveyance losses, and of fields.

The PVC conveyance and distribution technology is therefore appropriate to overcome these challenges. It saves time / hours of irrigation, which in turn reduces the cost of production and increases yield, “he said.

Prof Igadun displayed several irrigation facilities at the field day and he mentioned some of them as “Impact Sprinklers, Gun Sprinklers, Weirs, Flumes, Spiles, and Orifices.”

On the Wheat field, the Gun Sprinklers, Impact Sprinklers are used to irrigate the field. These are in addition to the irrigation system known as “Improved surface irrigation using PVC pipes. 

Shehu, the Kano Wheat Farmers leader, on his part, pledged to mobilize members of his association to adopt the technologies.

“Some of us have tested these technologies and it yielded good results. We are therefore calling on the government to come to our aid by continuing with the program even after TAAT is gone, ”Shehu added.

Engr. Rabiu Abdulkadir, the Director of Engineering and Service at the Kano State Ministry of Agriculture, in his closing remarks, commended TAAT for bringing such technologies to their doorstep during the Alkamawa field day.

Since these technologies, he continued, “will assist our farmers in curtailing the waste of water, thereby increasing the production of wheat, we are left with no choice as government, than to support this program in order to ensure its sustainability,” Abdulkadir added . 

Justina Musa is in a joyous mood.

The source of her joy and excitement isn’t far-fetched – the demand for domestic rice has risen to an all-time high.

The rice parboiler from Bukan-Sidi Lafia, in Nasarawa state, north-central Nigeria is happy at the prospect of waving a final goodbye to poverty in her life and family. Justina’s joy knows no bounds as her favourite crop, rice, is now the toast of the market following the introduction of technology and new policy thrust of government.

“I am happy now that I can get more money by parboiling rice,” she enthused.

“I don’t have to wait for my husband in order to provide little things for the household. Now, he asks my opinion before taking a decision for the family,” Justina added giggling.

The rice paradox in Nigeria

Nigeria is Africa’s leading consumer of rice, one of the largest producers of rice in Africa and simultaneously one of the largest rice importers in the world.

Rice is one of Nigeria’s important food security crop, an essential cash crop for its mainly small-scale producers who commonly sell 80 per cent of total production and consume only 20 per cent.

Upon assumption of office in 2015, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari pledged to help the nation become self-sufficient in rice.

By the end of 2015, Nigeria’s central bank banned the use of its foreign exchange to pay for rice imports, backing loans of at least 40 billion naira ($130 million) to help small-holders boost output.

It also banned rice imports across land borders and kept hefty 70% tariffs on imports coming through ports.

In 2017, rice paddy production for Nigeria came to 9.86 million tonnes. Recording a significant increase from 353,000 tonnes in 1968 and growing at an average annual rate of 9.76%.

Despite this increase, the Rice Millers Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria (RIMIDAN), revealed that over two million MT of parboiled rice were smuggled into Nigeria in 2017 alone.

Smuggled rice is primarily sourced from Thailand and India and comes into Nigeria through the country’s borders with Benin Republic, Niger and Cameroon.

Worried, perhaps by losses attributable to smuggling, Nigeria went a step further in August 2019 by closing its land borders altogether. This was with a view to boosting domestic rice production and stamping out smuggling, often from neighbouring Benin Republic.

At the close of 2019, government sources claimed that the border closure had helped in pushing Nigeria close to its 12 million tonnes target in rice production.

Increasing demand for domestic rice

The border closure led to a significant increase in demand for domestic rice in Nigeria.

This was followed by an improvement in the quality of domestic parboiled milled rice based on a preferred rice variety (FARO) by the middle class and “high class restaurants.”

Nigerians began to buy the GEM parboiled milled rice in record numbers both for household consumption and at social functions.

This chain of events became the trigger the Nasarawa state government, in north-central Nigeria required to dive headlong into boosting the production of paddy rice in the state.

It recognised early that the challenge of meeting the increasing demand for domestic rice lies not only in boosting rice production by famers, but in providing requisite technology for millers and parboilers.

The state government then identified for public-private partnership, the Bukan-Sidi Lafia multi-stakeholder rice Innovation Platform (IP), where Justina Musa works.

With domestic parboiled rice as entry point, the IP uses the AfricaRice developed technology – Grain quality enhancer, Energy-efficient and durable Material (GEM) rice parboiler.

IP Approach to scaling up GEM parboiled rice

The IP was established in 2015 at Bukan-Sidi Lafia, Nasarawa state as part of the African Development Bank-sponsored project, Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops (SARD-SC).

Through the SARD-SC project, the bank successfully introduced GEM rice parboiling in Nigeria, Benin, and Niger.

GEM-parboiled domestic rice competes with imported rice in urban markets. Added market value of GEM-parboiled domestic rice is $0.2 over sub-optimally parboiled rice.

Consumer-preferred attributes of domestic parboiled rice over imported rice include swelling, cleanliness and taste.

Some of the positive outcomes of the GEM rice parboiling technology include – a reduction in paddy steaming time from 60 to 20 min, post-harvest loss from 6% to < 0.5%, and reduced fire consumption by 41% (where firewood is used as fuel).

Multi-stakeholder innovation platforms (IPs) are set up to facilitate collective action for the generation, adoption and scaling of agricultural innovations that improve productivity and income.  

Collective action using the IP enhanced the skills of actors such as farmers, millers, seed producers and extension workers through awareness and demand creation campaigns, workshops, field days, branding and promotional activities, and experience sharing among others.

Over the last five years, AfricaRice with support from the bank, engaged policy makers of the State Ministry of Agriculture, traditional rulers (Amir), farmer groups, traders, and women and youths, etc. to promote quality GEM domestic parboiled milled rice using the IP approach.

The IP approach is embedded in developing the innovative capacity of the IP actors in the rice value chain, engaging the downstream consumers, upstream policy influencers, and policy makers to change mind-set on the perception of domestic parboiled milled rice in urban markets.

In 2019 therefore, when the Nasarawa state government acquired a 12 M/T integrated rice processing mill, it decided to open it to competition on private lease.

Justina’s Bukan-Sidi-Lafia rice IP won the bid competition and it was leased to them at 80,000 Naira ($223) per month for 3 years. The IP itself floated shares of 500,000 naira ($1389) each and raised 5 million naira among its membership.

Within a month, the IP generated over 19.7 million naira ($53,968.31) through service provision and sale of quality domestic parboiled rice from the new rice mill, with 16 women and 7 men employees.

Scaling up rice husk-fueled GEM parboiling system

In order to take the GEM rice parboiling technology to scale, the Rice Compact of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) in 2019, introduced rice husk-fueled GEM parboiling system which reduces or completely substitute firewood fuel by the rice husk, resulting in US$30 per tonne savings in the cost of firewood for rice parboiling.

Sponsored again by the African Development Bank (AfDB), TAAT’s main objective is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity, mitigating risks and promoting diversification and processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight Priority Intervention Areas (PIA).

The programme increases agricultural productivity through the deployment of proven and high-performance agricultural technologies at scale along selected commodities which include rice.

The TAAT Rice Compact, led by AfricaRice, is currently being implemented in seven focus countries, including Nigeria.

Using the rice husk-fueled GEM rice parboiling system by the IP in Nigeria for example, over 65 million Naira (US$181,800) was generated within one year (2019) from selling 218.15 tonnes of quality domestic parboiled rice.

Improving livelihoods

Quality GEM parboiled rice contributes to the improvement of the livelihoods of the rice IP members especially women rice parboilers like Justina, who are economically empowered.

Paulina Michael, a rice parboiler from Akwanga, Nasarawa state is happy with the noticeable transformation in her life and family.

“Truly, I have seen changes with this GEM rice parboiling technology. The process is much easier and less cumbersome than the old system I am used to. At the end, I have better rice that everyone wants to buy.”

“Before now, when we mill rice, we don’t even blow it, we only pack the rice into the drum and put water with the dirt inside. But now with the GEM technology, we wash our rice thoroughly, the rice will become as clean as anything, with no sand or stones. Now my market is moving as perfect as anything,” Tabitha Illiya, a retired nurse who now parboils rice at the Bukan-Sidi Lafia IP said.

“Now my life is progressing. I was able to obtain a loan of N450,000 ($1,233) to buy a grinding mill and I have already paid back the loan. I can boldly say I have a grinding mill, employing up to 5 women now,” Tabitha added with satisfaction

According to Yusuf Lawee, former Nassarawa State’s Commissioner for Agriculture and water Resources, the introduction of GEM rice parboiling technology in our state has led to a complete transformation of the Nasarawa rice sector.

“GEM parboiled rice has come a long way in our state, apart from adding value to rice production, the introduction of this technology by AfricaRice has led to an increase in livelihood opportunities for our people as many of our rice processors have been trained,” Lawee stated.

“I sincerely think that with regards to business opportunities in domestic parboiled rice, this technology has boosted the image of the Nasarawa state as the leading producer of quality parboiled rice in Nigeria,” the ex-commissioner added.

To Mr. Naphtali Jeremy Dako, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture and water Resources in Nasarawa State, there is no gainsaying the fact that that the rice Innovation Platform and GEM parboiled rice have contributed greatly to increasing food security in the State.

This contribution made it possible for government to come up with a policy that will not only encourage rice producers, millers, and marketers along the value chain but also position the rice sector as a key driver of job and wealth creation in Nasarawa state and Nigeria, Mr Dako added.

On the plans for the future, Mr Joshua Jonathan, Chairman of the Lafia Bukan-Sidi innovation platform (IP) called for more support as they plan to set up more sites across the state.

He further stated that despite the very good results achieved so far, unavailability of some spare parts for the milling machines as well as the lack of some critical equipment such as paddy cleaners, colour sorters, rice grader, moisture testers, etc. remain a challenge for sustainable processing of high quality domestic parboiled rice by the rice innovation platform (IP) in Nasarawa state.