TSONGA (Nigeria): The foreigners who came thousands of miles to the grasslands of western Nigeria seemed like a spectacular circus act to the area’s subsistence farmers. Local people were amazed at the dozens of tractors, harrows and planters that materialized along with huge amounts of seed and fertilizer. But the locals were flabbergasted again when their new neighbours started planting their crops, making, it seemed, some equally spectacular blunders.
They didn’t bother to mound the soil into hillocks around their corn and other crops, something locals have done since time immemorial. It is backbreaking work, the worst job of the year. Then, there was the spacing: Instead of a yard between each corn plant, they left only a few inches.
“They did tell us we were fools,” acknowledged Peter Cocker, 33, one of the newcomers, white farmers from Zimbabwe. But they expect their methods to increase yields here eight to 10 times. The whites from Zimbabwe, driven off their land in President Robert Mugabe’s plan to redistribute the farms to blacks, have become a hot commodity among other African countries eager to tap their expertise running large, commercial enterprises. Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers Union reported to members last month that 23 countries were scrambling to attract them.
Among the most aggressive officials was Bukola Saraki, governor of Nigeria’s western Kwara state, who saw an opportunity to teach local farmers better techniques and kick off large-scale commercial farming in Nigeria, a country of 130 million people that relies on subsistence agriculture, imports food and depends on oil for most of its exports.
Despite Nigeria’s strangling bureaucracy and rampant corruption, 13 farmers took Saraki up on the offer. With loans as much as $250,000 to get started and 50-year leases, 13 commercial farms of 1,000 hectares each are springing up. The white farmers are planning to add cows for dairy and meat production, as well as growing fruit, flowers and vegetables for export to Europe. Their first crop is now in the ground, and along with it, an intense competition has sprouted.
The newcomers’ first corn crop, covering hundreds of acres, stretches green and tall to the skies, dwarfing the locals’ widely spaced crops on mounded earth. But most of the local farmers still shake their heads with doubt. Grudgingly, they admit the newcomers’ crops do look better, but they insist those vigorous-looking plants will never mature.
“When I saw the planting I knew that they had made a big mistake,” said Liman Mohammad, 43, of nearby Chikangiworo village. “What they’re doing, well, maybe they don’t know how to farm.
“My advice to them is that to farm here, they should make ridges. They should adjust the distance of their plants. Since we have been brought up, we’ve made ridges.”—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service
