Alleviating Poverty Through Farming, the Yobe Example

from All Africa

This Day (Lagos)

By Michael Olugbode
Lagos

While global attention focuses on the increasing food prices, the Yobe State government is already planning ahead to make food abundant by encouraging the youth to embrace agriculture. It is also a strategy for fighting poverty.

Mallam Abdul Wasili, 60 years and an indigene of Yobe State is a grandfather. For some time now he has found life so difficult because he can not provide food and other essentials for his large family. It never used to be like this with him and the members of his family because he is a man who believes in hard work and grew up with the knowledge that if you till the ground, it will be kind with you, providing you with milk and honey.

But five years ago what was a good story for his people turned to disaster for him, as his large expanse of farmland has been taken over by government for development purposes. Wasili is left with no other option but to give up his heritage and his meal ticket, the land. He had to seek survival elsewhere. As he knew no other occupation than farming, he had to move further from his village to lease land where he could plant and pray that God will smile on him with good harvest. Though old, the energy of his youth is yet to depart.

He had started thinking that God had forgotten him in his old age and because of the sins of his youth until the administration of Senator Mamman Ali was giving land to youths with all the needed implements and chemical for farming. Though he was not a youth, something kept telling him to try his luck in the programme. He put himself forward and told the selectors his story. Though they were moved to help, but they were reluctant because of his age.

He was reluctantly given a piece of an already cleared land, seedlings and chemicals. As if this was not enough he was given some money to transport himself to and fro the farm which is situated in the outskirt of the state capital Damaturu. Some months later Wasili is all praises for the state government as he was able to harvest three bags of millet and a bag of cowpea. Though his happiness knows no bound he appeals to government to increase the size of the farm given to him and others.

Another beneficiary of the scheme, Mohammed Babayo Buba, 43 was never privileged enough to have owned a land, he has been hiring land for cultivation since his youth. On learning of the Yobe Youth Empowerment Farm Project (YYEFP) he decided to take a chance. The chance he took then has become a success story today as at the end of the planting season he harvested five bags of grains, the same number of millet and a bag of cowpea on a paltry half a plot of land given to him.

Buba who claimed that the land was not enough for those that depend on him including aged parents, children and extended family, disclosed that it took them just three months to finish all his harvest. He said "I am grateful to government for its assistance, but would not mind additional plots."

He said he was made to be at the mercy of his son that works on another farm elsewhere who sent ten bags of millet to assist his large family otherwise they would have been afflicted by hunger. To Muazu who all he ever knew was to be at the service of willing politicians, the programme was a reward for being a member of the youth wing of the ruling party. Though he would not like to be addressed as a political thug, he disclosed that his other occupation was to sell petroleum products in the outlawed jerry can by the roadside. He said he was able to harvest five bags of millet and two bags of cowpea from his farm.

Muazu said this was less than his expectations from government, disclosing that he was persuaded to take the farm with a promise that more are still coming from government. Muazu further said there is nothing wrong in being a member of the youth wing of a party because he was only exercising his political right. "I will still go back to the activity. Every party has its youth wing and there is nothing wrong in going on with it," he stressed. On the programme, he said "I take it as the first democratic dividend from government and I am still waiting for more benefits."

These are just few of the 521 beneficiaries of the scheme which are largely made up of youths and pocket of women. Explaining the reasons behind the scheme, Alhaji Alkali Abdulkadir Jajere said the state was faced with perhaps the largest challenge of providing jobs for thousands of unemployed youths and knowing that it would be difficult to get them fixed in the civil service, the Yobe Youths Empowerment Farm Project (YYEFP) to take large amount young ones off the streets.

He said "when we came in, the number one challenge we looked into is the problem of youths and unemployment, various strategies were put in place in form of poverty alleviation. Poverty has become endemic in this country so on inauguration the governor of the state saw this problem and decided to tackle it with all available resources.

"And to solve the problem of youth unemployment he came up with the scheme, given the agricultural potential of the state, every able-bodied youth will have a chance of getting himself/herself out of the vicious poverty and unemployment cycle and that is why the government decided that at the pilot stage of the project 1,000 people should be taken up," he explained.

The commissioner said the scheme fully come on stream during the rainy season after the government was inaugurated on May 29. The scheme was initiated in June and it took some time to get the land prepared, making it impossible to get the 250 hectares of land assigned to those that came forward by August. Jajere said the success of the scheme has informed government to accommodate a thousand more youths in the state capital Damaturu and have 300 take off in each of the 16 remaining local government areas of the state. He explained that it is envisaged that the success would be better in the second phase.

He disclosed that forms have already be given out freely to those interested in participating and that the scheme plans to take up 5,100 youths across the state, promising that as long as there is increase interest, the number of participants taken up will increase with each subsequent year. According to him "last year was 521 youths, this year it is 5,100 and next year we are planning increasing the number if more youths come up and subsequent years we do the same until the state is rid of unemployed youths."

He said the scheme is elastic as the idea is to provide 1,000 hectares of land each in each of the 17 local government areas of the state with the government providing all the needed farm inputs. The youths are to manage such farms themselves and at the end of the harvest, the inputs supplied to each youth will be rated and recovery made in kind from the produce so obtained.the commissioner explained that the youths are not left to their little farming skill but are thought by the experts from the ministry of agriculture on the modern farming skills and crop spacing as well as how the land could be put to use all year round. He noted that the youths are wanted on the farms as long as they are willing to stay.

Jajere said for one to be selected for the programme, selection "he must be an indigene of the state and unemployed. Even if you are employed and ready to work on the farm you will be given a chance." He further disclosed that there is a form we give free of charge to anyone who signifies intention to participate.

During the pilot scheme the participants planted millet, sorghum, cowpea (beans) and water melon, but in subsequent seasons they would be encouraged according to the commissioner to plant onions, tomatoes and castor oil. Throwing more light on the scheme, the permanent secretary in the ministry of agriculture, Mallam Gambomi Goni said during the last planting season, government spent about N70, 000 each on the hectare of land but decided at harvest that nothing should be taken from the participants.

Goni said the participants were allowed to sell there produce to the government, which is stored in its warehouse as part of the state strategic reserve (buffer store) or if they choose to may walk away with it. He however noted that many of them sold their produce to government because at the peak of harvest season when they harvest the prices of the produce always drop to rock bottom making it unprofitable to sell at open market.

The permanent secretary while disclosing that the produce are later sold by government when the prices have gone beyond the reach of an average residents at a subsidized price by government to the residents of the state to mitigate the effect of inflated prices when the harvest is long over, said it is a win-win situation for the participants. He said the government may have to collect what it invested in the farm in future in cash in line with the theory behind the scheme so as not to encourage laziness which may also undermine the objective of the scheme. He claimed that though it is win-win situation for the participants, it is not a total loss to the government as it seeks to see the streets of the state free of crimes and to put smile back on the teeming population of the state.