For Nigeria to compete favourably with other nations and meet food sufficiency and food security target, the country has to reduce its sole dependence on rain-fed agriculture. Mr. Peter Manjuk, the Project Coordinator, Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria (TRIMING) Programme, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday. He said as the country’s population expanded, deliberate efforts were needed to revamp the River Basins Development Authorities (RBDAs) across the country.
The project coordinator said that RBDAs served as vehicles for the socio-economic development of any nation. According to him, Nigeria must get it right, if it must meet the people’s demands of food production and food security. Manjuk said in spite of huge investments in dams and irrigation, it had not achieved any meaningful socio-economic impact, saying there was the need for deliberate efforts to achieve this objective. He regretted that the contribution of irrigated agriculture had been very little to food production, pointing out that with the intervention of TRIMING, the trend was being reversed. “Nigeria population is a fast-growing population, in order to ensure food sufficiency and food security, we cannot continue with rain-fed agriculture which has characterized our agricultural practice in Nigeria.
“The contribution of irrigated agriculture has been very little. ‘’With our fast growing population, we cannot sustain ourselves in terms of food sufficiency and food security until we revamp irrigated agricultural practice, and make it work in order to support our population and even to allow us to export. “TRIMING is coming as an intervention to transform irrigation management and practice in Nigeria to be able to increase access to irrigated land. “It will also put in place institutional arrangement to manage, and operate these systems. Instead of deteriorating, they will continue to grow and serve the interest of this nation food-wise.” He said Nigeria could not continue to rely on old methods to expect a change in the river basins activities, adding that they were the implementing agencies of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources.
The project coordinator said deliberate interventions were needed in river basin operations to address the problems that had kept them grounded and not functional. Manjuk said the lack of sound operations and maintenance arrangements had been widely recognized as the most critical challenge that should be addressed to improve the performance of the RBDAs irrigation sub- sector. TRIMING is a project of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, supported by the World Bank for the improvement of irrigation system management in five schemes in five states in northern Nigeria. They are Bakolori Irrigation Scheme in Zamfara, Middle Rima Valley Irrigation scheme in Sokoto, Kano River Irrigation scheme in Kano, Hadejia Valley Irrigation scheme in Jigawa and Dadin Kowa Irrigation scheme in Gombe State.