Recently, the Federal Government released two high-yielding BT cotton seeds varieties for cultivation this year. The release is viewed by many as a positive development that would kick-start a revolution, which will also be a game-changer for the ginning, textile and garment factories in Nigeria. In this regard, Daily Trust on Sunday sat down with the president of the National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN), Mr Anibe Achimugu who is also the MD of ArewaCotton to explain the revolution coming to cotton subsector. Excerpts:
Recently two Bt. cotton varieties were released for cultivation in the country. How is this going to be a game changer in cotton cultivation?
I believe this introduction will be a game changer particularly for their significant yield potentials, good quality parameters, disease resistance, drought resistance, short to medium maturity growth, and to mention a few. This will help, for instance, reduce the size of hectares needed to achieve the production levels that the cotton, textile and garment (CTG) sector requires to meet installed capacities and achieve exports. It will also immediately improve the purchasing power of farmers and, therefore, bring them immediate satisfaction while boosting their local economy. This should significantly support the policy drive of the Federal Government of Nigeria to revive the CTG sector and also further develop in-country cotton seed planting production.
How is the association benefiting from the CBN Anchor Borrower Programme?
NACOTAN has benefited significantly from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme. It has basically enabled our association come back to life, offering the expected services to our members with over 151,000 members captured, and majority beneficiaries. It has helped us consolidate on our existing membership and the registration of new members. The CBN/NACOTAN ABP has in no small way impacted our association positively, giving us visibility locally and internationally.
What are the factors that currently militate against cotton production in the country and what strategies are you deploying to tackle them?
Although challenges will always be a factor, I am pleased to say that most have been addressed or are being addressed. For instance, one of such factors is good quality planting seed. This was addressed with the CBN sourcing for good quality planting seeds that were distributed to farmers in the 2019 cotton cropping season, and that can be replanted for at least three more cropping seasons. Testimonies from our members are very encouraging and that will be evidenced by the good quality cotton lint that will soon be available to our Ginning, Textile and Garment factories. Climate change is also becoming a significant factor, though not only affecting cotton alone. Our strategy is to ensure insurance cover and to introduce in clear terms this factor to our farmers and train them on the techniques and required skills to tackle it. And generally, the issues of availability of land, market, the guarantee of minimum price, and extension services to mention a few, are being addressed under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) of the CBN. I can state with confidence that the factors are being reduced significantly and sustaining this intervention will further render the effects of these factors negligible
You were recently retained as the National Chairman of the association, what are your plans to expand cotton production in the country?
The members of the National Executive Members of NACOTAN and I, were reelected for a second term in office, indeed we thank our members for the show of confidence. Our topmost plan is to work closely with the current administration, through the Central Bank of Nigeria, to support the policy drive to return Nigeria back to the glory days of a vibrant CTG sector that once contributed significantly to the GDP of our nation. And the starting point is sustainable good quality cotton production. To achieve sustainable cotton production, considering that our nation is blessed with cotton production success factors such as soil type and weather conditions in practically every region of Nigeria, the key success factor therefore is the farmers. Our plans, therefore, very much involves making the farmers proud to be cotton farmers, where their standards of living significantly improves. This encourages the others to remain in the cotton cultivation business, hereby, attracting others, especially women and youths to cotton cultivation. To support our plans further, we will introduce technology to cultivation, management of farms and the entire programme to increase our overall success rate.
Apart from the CBN Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, what other areas of cotton production do you want the Federal Government to intervene in?
First and foremost, I wish to commend the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari for the political will that has supported the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria to deploy efficiently taxpayers’ money in the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) that has kick-started a revolution in the Cotton, Textiles and Garments (CTG) sector. This enables Nigeria return to its glory days of a robust CTG sector, and indeed bringing back life to agricultural production and processing in Nigeria. The ABP model is still, in my opinion, the best agricultural programme yet introduced in Nigeria. There are indeed challenges but not enough to jettison the programme. More so, that the CBN is constantly making adjustments to fit realities, their flexibility is ensuring success. With that said, the area that I wish the Federal Government of Nigeria to specifically and directly intervene in is the development and establishment of internationally recognised grades for Nigerian cotton, which can only be achieved through the instrumentality of the Federal Government. This will immediately build confidence and trust, while helping to attract the best market prices for our cotton locally and internationally. It will help streamline over six cotton varieties currently developed and existing in Nigeria and also help farmers receive payment according to the quality of cotton they have produced. To achieve this, there is need to urgently enact the Nigeria Cotton Standards (NCS) through the establishment of Nigeria Cotton Classing and Grading Centres (NCCGC), which will be located within each cotton producing zone, equipped with modern and standard High Volume Instruments (HVI). These are testing instruments that can tell us the exact quality parameters (fibre strength, fibre length, micronaire, colour, trash content etc) of our cotton, therefore, giving us in-country capacity to demand for the right values to be applied to our cotton products.
What is the NACOTAN’s plan for this year cultivation?
NACOTAN’s plan for this year’s cotton cultivation is to achieve a minimum of 300,000hectares of good quality cotton cultivation that will compete favourably with cotton produced by our West African neighbours (Cameroon, Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso etc), who are all internationally recognised as good quality cotton producers and they attract good prices. We aim to introduce significantly, cluster farming that will ensure better support and services to our members.
Farmers here hardly produce cotton in the dry season through irrigation as is done in India and other places. Why?
The reason is as simple as lack of irritation capacity in most cases, (high cost of acquiring the right fitting irrigation technology), knowledge gap, and insufficient quantities of irrigated cotton planting seeds, to mention a few. And the fact that it will require precision timing capacity that matches carefully predicted weather conditions.
Youths are hardly involved in cotton production, how are you encouraging them to join the train?
We are currently engaged in the registration of farmers across the cotton producing zones, and we have emphasized to our registration partners to go out of their way to register women and youths. We are also stepping up partnership with individuals that own large (50 hectares and above) contiguous parcels of land, having identified the fact that women and youths may not have access to parcels of land themselves, so we allocate one hectare of land to them within the large parcels. We believe that this approach will encourage the women and youths to join NACOTAN and thereafter, remain in agricultural production and, even in the future, grow to become processors within the very wide cotton value chain.
What message do you have for cotton farmers as they go into production in the next couple of months?
I encourage farmers not only to join the cotton revolution by participating fully, but that they should be diligent in adhering to their trainings, utilize inputs provided strictly for cotton, ensure care of their plots, commit to the programme’s guidelines. Who knows? They might be the next richest group of farmers in Nigeria.
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