For the agriculture transformation agenda of the current administration, which is aimed at adding 20 million metric tonnes of food to the country’s domestic supply by 2015 and creating 3.5 million jobs, the nation must mechanise farming, Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has said.

According to the minister on Monday at the commissioning of some projects at National Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation (NCAM), Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria has 84 million hectares of land, with about 40 per cent of that actually cultivated.

He added: “In terms of yields, which are still very low and in terms of the productivity of land, in fact not more than 10 per cent of all the arable land is actually optimally cultivated.

“The numbers don’t look good for Africa on mechanisation. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimates that only one per cent of farm power is provided by mechanical means in Africa less than 10 per cent from animal traction and 89 per cent come from human labour.

“Nigeria is no exception. The current level of mechanisation in Nigeria is estimated to be 0.03 ox power per hectare as against 1.5 ox power per hectare recommended by FAO. The total number of tractors we have in the country is 30,000 but as one goes around, probably 20 per cent of them have broken down and are littering the country”.

Adesina continued: “This low level of mechanisation limits the ability of farmers to expand cultivated areas to perform timely farm operations to achieve economy of scale in raising food production. Because farming is still done with rudimentary equipment, our land and labour productivity is low and this limits the interest of the yields in agriculture.

“For many decades, governments have sunk billions of naira into purchase of tractors and other mechanised equipment but corruption, lack of maintenance culture had made these efforts less than successful as they were designed to be.

“Government’s direct procurement and distribution of tractor was not different from direct procurement and distribution of fertiliser. As government was buying fertiliser, no more than 11 per cent of farmers were getting the fertiliser. The fertiliser would develop hands and legs and walk away from the farmers.”