Farouk Gumel

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Farouk Gumel - Why is the Indian farmer protest important for Africa’s agricultural policy?

March 05, 2021

Recently, the media has been reporting about massive farmer protests in India against the implementation of certain agricultural reforms in Nigeria. The protest started on 9th August 2020 and most of the protesting farmers are from India’s two largest agricultural producing states (Punjab and Haryana). It is reported that these States are the largest beneficiaries of the Indian Government’s Green Revolution reforms. The first important point to note is the farmers protesting outside New Delhi are among the wealthier farmers in the country who are the major beneficiaries of Government interventions including the Minimum Support Price (MSP), the India government’s grain procurement program which provides offtake assurance through government regulated physical markets. So the views of these large players may not be a fair representation of the millions of smallholder farmers in India. The reforms proposed by the Indian Government comes are covered in three (3) new laws and, according

Farouk Gumel - The minimum support price in agriculture - what is it important

March 04, 2021

Farouk Gumel - Most governments intervene in their agricultural markets although the extent of these interventions depend in large part on the wealth of the country. In the last century or so, the most common of these interventions is the Minimum Support Price (MSP) mechanism. In this paper, I hope to explain in simple terms, what the MSP is and how it works. MSP is the price at which the government commits to purchase crops from the farmers. This acts as a ‘minimum floor price’ farmers will get for their produce thereby shielding them from adverse market conditions because of price drop. Furthermore, in the event of a bumper harvest where there is excess stock, farmers still have a guaranteed buyer as the government, through its agencies, will buy the entire stock offered by the farmers at the MSP. The prices of agricultural commodities often vary due to various factors. If a crop has seen a good harvest season during a particular year, it may see a sharp fall in its prices. This will

Farouk Gumel - Africa’s Agriculture exports and the need for more processing locally

February 18, 2021

Farouk Gumel - Despite long standing recognition of the benefits of trade and the importance of improving competitiveness, Africa is performing beneath its potential in global and regional agricultural markets. Recent export growth has been offset by even larger growth in imports, caused by a booming population. More than 60 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa are smallholder farmers, and about 23 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP comes from agriculture. Yet, Africa’s full agricultural potential remains untapped. This has led to a deterioration of Africa’s trade balance. Intraregional trade, on the other hand, is growing, but remains significantly below the levels seen in other parts of the world. Africa still has strong comparative advantages in many products which include traditional cash crops like coffee, cocoa and tea, as well as new products like legumes, pulses and sesame seeds. Some of these products are becoming the main staples of many African countries, incl

Farouk Gumel - Nigeria’s Fertiliser Revolution – a story of job creation and higher yields

January 20, 2021

Farouk Gumel - Agriculture accounts for 70% of the entire workforce in Nigeria and therefore, remains the sector that can massively lift Nigerian’s out of poverty in an inclusive and sustainable way. It is reported that Nigeria has 60 million hectares of arable land which is grossly underutilized. Our yields remain low and post-harvest losses are extremely high. For decades, Nigeria has relied on importation to meet its food security needs. In the last 5 years, the Nigerian authorities have designed and implemented various trade, fiscal and monetary policies to support local food production and reduce post-harvest losses. One of these policies is the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative (PFI) which was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016. The program’s motive was simple. To locally produce fertiliser in an affordable manner. Nigeria has a lot of the key ingredients to make fertiliser locally but in the past, has been importing most of its needs and thus, ignoring the local

Farouk Gumel | Pushing Nigeria’s Biggest sector to its limits - Agriculture

January 12, 2021

Farouk Gumel - Finally, agriculture is taking its rightful place as the sector that will take Nigerians out of poverty and into an era of inclusive and collective prosperity. Although the sector employs millions of Nigerians and accounts for an estimated 20% of the country’s GDP, many still view supporting agriculture as a charitable act as opposed to a business venture. This is the simple reason why many farmers in this sector are classified as “under employed” due to their mere inability to grow beyond the subsistence level. Nigeria is blessed as we have the potential to excel in all the key sub-sectors of agriculture. We have the land and forests for farming and grazing. We have the water (sea, lakes and rivers) for fishing and aquaculture. We have the capacity and the climate for livestock and poultry production. And of course, we have the manpower to get all this done. Therefore, it is extremely exciting for all of us to see significant investments going into this sector. We are

Farouk Gumel - A case for why oil should not be Nigeria’s No.1 Focus

January 08, 2021

Farouk Gumel - Oil was discovered in Nigeria in the 1950’s and today, Nigeria is the eleventh-largest oil-producer in the world and Africa’s main oil producer. In 1977, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) was founded to participate and regulate the country’s oil sector. Since then, significant progress has been made in terms of increasing production, revenues, and consumption. We must thank NNPC for Nigeria’s dominance in Africa when it comes to oil production. This dominance however came with its downsides. As a nation, Nigeria became over reliant, or one could even say addicted, to oil revenues. From the 1970’s, we convinced ourselves that Nigeria is rich. And maybe we are. But the reality is poverty has always been around growing side by side with our oil production and the apparent wealth. This is because as oil brings revenues to a nation, it does not create jobs in a nation. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the petroleum industry directly em

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