AFAN chairman wants agric subsidy stay
By NASIRU MUHAMMAD

IT has been observed that for the sustenance of agricultural development in Nigeria and its economy, subsidies from the inputs and marketing sides must be done and go together.
Making the observation recently was the Kano state chairman, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Alhaji Muhammad Sabo Na’nono, in a press conference with newsmen.
Alhaji Na’nono, said there should be two sides subsidies, both from the production side and the pricing side, that over the years, subsidies were been removed from the agricultural sector something he said had resulted in low production and greater imports of agricultural commodities into the country, especially rice.
The chairman explained that, “when you come to the issue of lower prices on the part of the farmers, that is the pricing policy there is no fall-back position on the part of the farmer through which the government can come and help him. You will find that next year, he will recalculate instead of growing say maize or sorghum, he will go for another thing, therefore the prices of sorghum and maize will shoot up.
“Subsidy is in two ways, it is better for the government to buy from the farmers in order to maintain price stability, because if a farmer is making loss, he is not going to insist on producing X, Y, Z.”
He said in Nigeria with regard to cotton, each year when the price of the commodity goes up, the following year people will rush to its production, then it will come down and people will leave it for another thing next year.
The AFAN chairman said the marketing board comforts farmers because each year, it announces the new prices for cotton, groundnut, cocoa, palm-nut and others, before the raining season begins, something that allowed farmers to organize their production.
He expressed concern for the lack of such bodies at the moment, noting that the only thing the authorities do, is to give contract to purchase grains when it sees that the prices were going low and is not based on any particular pricing policy.
“This year in particular, you go to Dawanau grains market in Kano, the price of sorghum is not more than N22,000 per ton. There was a time the year before this, it was about N45,000 to N50,000 per ton. It was the same thing with maize. We have to be very careful because if the farmers will produce at a loss, there is no point for anybody to do business at a loss.”