Our best of 2007: The biodiesel debate

06 January, 2008 05:31:00 Siaka Momoh

Font size:

Our concern has been ensuring food security for all. To make this possible, several food security debates have been held; policies have emerged and are being executed. The Nigerian Economic Summit Group for instance, has a Food and Security Commission. One of the achievements of this commission is the Nucleus Estate Initiative which has taken root and which is already yielding results. OLAM Nigeria and many other private sector institutions have glowing testimonies on this initiative. The NESG Food Security Commission is headed by indefatigable Emmanuel Ijewere.

We have made some progress in our drive to achieve food security, but the level we are, currently, is not a comfortable one. We can see this, and can feel it too. And the experts know it and have said so. Oloche Edache, assistant director-general and FAO regional representative for Africa, says Nigeria has virtually attained self sufficiency in most food categories, that food insecure accounts for less than 10 per cent of the national population, but that this performance in domestic food production cannot guarantee the sustainability of achievements fast enough to cope with the food demands of a large populous country like Nigeria.

Quoting a World Bank study in 2005, Edache said with a population growth rate of 2.7 per cent per annum, at the present rate of production, Nigeria will require an estimated 70 to 80 per cent increase in food supplies to meet its corresponding capital food requirements by 2015.

"The simple truth is that this country has to accelerate growth in the agricultural sector," he said. Edache said against this background, "It is not surprising that the NESG is turning its search light on a robust agriculture sector growth as a means of achieving rapid economic development."

He revealed that there was a strong policy commitment to agricultural development, citing the positions of the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy NEEDS), which set a growth target of six per cent, the African Union's New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) which also set a growth target rate of 6 per cent, for member countries.

He commended the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development ambitious programme called Agricultural and Rural Transformation Programme from Vision to Action (ARTP), which has set a target of achieving 10 per cent growth in the agricultural sector at a cost of N114.895 billion consisting of development and credit costs of N82.3 billion and N32.578 billion respectively, spread over four years. For him, Nigeria's agriculture has a growth potential, citing that "less than half of the arable land is currently cultivated, even though there is growing pressure on land in many areas, and less than one per cent of the eligible land is under irrigation".

Quite a good picture, isn't it? This is not all.

Kofi Annan, immediate past director-general of the UN, recently in Cape Town, South Africa at the launch of Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), where he was made chairman of the continental body, said "we know that the path to prosperity in Africa begins at the fields of African farmers, who unlike farmers almost anywhere else, do not produce enough food to nourish our families, communities, or the populations of our growing African cities".

Annan who said poverty must be addressed at its core, added that in Africa, this meant enabling small-scale farmers to grow and sell Africa's food. He said, "the facts are well known that Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where per capita food production has steadily declined," where "one-third of the continent's population is chronically undernourished".

These are good postulations, they are good intensions. But where do we stand with biofuel now competing with our drive for food security? This is one global debate that is currently raging. We hear that as agriculture production for biofuel increases, the debate between "foods versus fuel" continues to heat up. Defenders of new biofuel crops such as Jatropha, the scientific name for Central America's pinion plant, we are told, claim that the crop will not displace traditional food crops and will give farmers an economic advantage. On the other hand, foes counter that biofuel corporations are eclipsing small farmers in India and Brazil by cultivating massive plantations of non-edible crops.

A new report, the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2007-2016, has provided insight into the long-term impact on food security of the biofuel production in the agriculture sector. Structural changes in agriculture, specifically for increased feedstock for biofuel production, would keep agriculture prices at historic high levels for the next decade, said the report.

It stated that these higher commodity prices would raise costs for developing countries that import food as well as the urban poor, that, while higher feedstock prices caused by increased bio-fuel production would benefit feedstock producers, it also meant extra costs and lower incomes for farmers "who need the feedstock to provide animal feed".

If the advent of biofuel will suppress the focused drive for food security, Nigeria will not be spared because we are already part of the biofuel production race. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has put a fuel ethanol production in place. The programme is predicated on the development of large scale cassava and sugarcane plantation, under a renewable energy division of the NNPC. Fuel ethanol is an anti knock additive in gasoline, and it is emerging as an important motor fuel in view of the Kyoto protocol agreement to which Nigeria is a signatory.

The answer to the anticipated problem may be large scale farming which President Umar Yar'Adua said, last week, would be a new focus for Nigeria. I hope he does not mean that the Federal Government and other government in Nigeria will do the farming. This should be the private sector show. All government should do is provide the enabling environment. We have learnt our lessons in the past. You know what I mean.

Add to: Add to your del.icio.us