Akinwumi Adesina: Celebrating the First Nigerian Winner of World Food Prize Laureate II

Akinwumi Adesina: Celebrating the First Nigerian Winner of World Food Prize Laureate II

Well seated at a vantage position in the gallery of the Rotunda of the Capitol, Des Moines, Iowa state, I watched Mr. Olusegun Aremu Obansajo, a retired Army General, former Head of State and President of Nigeria, thrilled to no – limit, succinctly displaying his innermost joy and dancing to Adunni and Nefertiti music with Dr. and Mrs. Akinwumi Adesina to mark the ecstatic moment. It was a genuine show of happiness, displaying in an African way and the audience responded by a thunderous applause with shout of “Baba”. Despite the affable nature of the milieu and visible pleasantry of all and sundry, the vast majority of the audience was confused; what is the meaning of “Baba”? Is it another name of Adesina? An American lady sitting by my side whispered into my ears “Please, translate to me what the Musician is saying”. As a non – Yoruba language speaker, I said, “Nigeria has over 200 local languages and many Nigerians hardly speak more than three languages and thus, I don’t understand a word from the Musician song”. The lady was visibly more perplexed at how a single country is endowed with more than 200 different languages. Well, the Capitol gathering was certainly an African celebration in the heart of America.          

The aforementioned was the pleasant scenario played at Capitol, Des Moines in the evening of 19^th October 2017 during the award ceremony of the 2017 World Food Prize Laureate won Dr. Adesina. What was his scorecard, which earned him the most coveted prize in global fight against hunger, malnutrition, poverty and squalor? How did he emerge as a winner in this cutthroat competition among the best agricultural scientists and foremost philanthropists (donors of foods to the needy) worldwide?  Adesina’s scorecard was developed almost three decades by dint of hard work, commitment, perseverance and determination to eradicate poverty and make food available to all and sundry in all parts of African continent. World Food Prize Foundation provided reasons why Adesina was chosen as the winner of 2017 World Food Prize. Vanguard, one of the Nigerian dailies reported that President of the Foundation, Ambassador Kenneth Quinn announced Adesina as the winner of the prize “for driving change in African agriculture for over 25 years and improving food security for millions across the continent”. This means that in the last 25 years, Adesina has passionately led major policies of comprehensive support for millions of farmers across the continent, including access to financing and credit, access to agricultural technologies such as improved seeds and fertilizers and investment in agriculture from both the public and private sectors. This Column x-rays few important milestones that made Adesina the winner of 2017 World Food Prize for the record.

The first was the African Fertilizer Summit in Nigeria. Adesina’s limelight was comprehensively noticed more than ten years when he successfully spearheaded 2006 African Fertilizer Summit. As an insightful agricultural scientist with vast experience of African farming system, Adesina believes in the efficacy of using improved inputs for higher output and thus, unless fertilizer accessibility, affordability and use are popularized on a wider scale in African countries, the farmers would never improve their productivity and their livelihoods would remain the same. Consequently, with active support of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2006, Adesina gathered the world community, including Dr. Norman Borlaug of bless memory, the Rockefeller Foundation, the heads of IFAD and the African Commission—and many other notable heads of state and leaders of non-governmental organizations—to develop workable solutions to Africa’s fertilizer crisis.

The Abuja Summit in 2006 was one of the largest and most successful high-level gatherings in African history to discuss Africa’s food crisis and feasible solutions.  Dr. Norman Borlaug, the most respectable personality, the architect of the Green Revolution in Asia and Latin America, was then 92 years old; he was not merely gracing the Summit but he played a key role at the Summit. He challenged the African presidents and leaders during his keynote speech by emphatically declaring that he wanted to see the Green Revolution take place in Africa before his death. At the conclusion of Borlaug’s speech, President Obasanjo, who hosted the gathering, was so moved by the speaker’s passionate words that he jumped out of the audience, beaten the security details and joined the old man at the podium, looked at audience of more than 1,000 and said “We’ve been chastised by Norm—and, so, we have to move forward and get our agriculture moving.” It was the most inspiring and motivating message from a respectable elder and dogged hunger fighter who provided foods on the dinning tables of over six billion people before his demise. The famous outcome of the summit was the adoption of the “Abuja Declaration on Fertilizer for the African Green Revolution” by the government and NGO leaders who attended the Africa Fertilizer Summit. Their commitment was stated thus; “to combating poverty and food and nutrition insecurity in Africa and to direct our attention to key decisions that can move us forward with a view to eradicating hunger by 2030.”

The second important stride was the formation of Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to achieve the desires and wishes of the internationally acclaimed elder statesman, Dr. Norman Borlaug as expressed during his speech at the Fertilizer Summit.  Therefore, a crucial outcome of the success of the Africa Fertilizer Summit was the establishment of AGRA by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan served as Chairman, Dr. Namanga Ngongi as President and Dr. Adesina as Vice President for Policy and Partnerships. Adesina’s role in AGRA was spectacular as he mobilized banks to make massive investment in agriculture. He directly connected teeming African farmers to markets. This was in addition to making improved practices accessible to the farmers thereby increasing greatly diminishing rural poverty, wealth creation as well as achieving stability in the agriculture sector.  It was his effort that made the Bank of Uganda to lend to farmers growing bananas, using $500,000 from Rockefeller’s Program Related Investment - also known as Impact Investment - program.

Another milestone was Adesina’s facilitation for the development of partnership between International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Kenya. This resulted in the launching of a risk sharing facility with Kenya’s largest bank, Equity Bank. The original $5 million leveraged $50 million of financing from Equity Bank to tens of thousands of smallholder farmers and the agro-dealers that supported them. Furthermore, he was able to scale up the Kenya’s strategy to other countries through a $10 million risk sharing facility. He facilitated the joining of AGRA by the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Kilimo Trust, which eventually leveraged $100 million for loans to farmers in Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Mozambique, Benin, Togo and Liberia.

The biggest and most important milestone was Adesina’s role as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Nigeria. Adesina’s appointment as a cabinet Minister provided golden opportunity for him to touch the lives of millions of his fellow citizens positively. Record shows that under Adesina’s stewardship as Minister, Nigeria’s food production expanded by 21 million metric tons and attracted $5.6 billion in private sector investments in agriculture. He facilitated the creation of structure such as Nigerian Incentive Based Risk Sharing for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) and negotiated with the Central Bank of Nigeria to use $350 million to create a facility that leveraged $3.5 billion from commercial banks into agriculture. It was in deed the largest effort in Africa to get banks to lend to farmers and agribusinesses such staggering amount. Farmers were the major beneficiaries of NIRSAL as they received access to lending institutions and improved access to markets for their produce at the best possible prices. Happily, the Government of Muhammadu Buhari continued with this policy. On fertilizer, he introduced e – wallet system, which dismantled decades of corruption and the infamous roles of middlemen in the fertilizer distribution system. Thus, Adesina was able to empower farmers to obtain the needed inputs directly through the e – wallet system. For the first time after many years, farmers benefitted from the government subsidy in fertilizer. The system impacted on the lives of 14.5 million farmers and their families. The efficient delivery of inputs to farmers combined with other interventions saw a sharp growth of $2 billion in five value chains of cassava, rice, sorghum, maize and cotton. The impact of the fertilizer distribution to women through e – wallet was beyond imagination – a reason why a dry season woman farmer beat protocol and security details to hug and shower her appreciation to the Minister during his visit to farming community of Kano. “Honorable Minister, we sincerely and immensely thank you for this” – showing her small, Nokia handset signifying e-wallet. That was Adesina, the darling of poor resourced farmers of Africa, a famous scientist, friend to society’s movers and shakers and the 2017 World Food Prize Laureate. 

Akinwumi Adesina: Celebrating the First Nigerian Winner of World Food Prize Laureate

Akinwumi Adesina: Celebrating the First Nigerian Winner of World Food Prize Laureate

In the last ten years or so, Adesina has been a household name in both rural and urban nooks and crannies of Africa. He has been a friend to the nations’ Presidents, shrewd business tycoons and resourced – poor peasant farmers. This is a wide range of diversity. It is amazing how one man swings from dinning and wining with global movers and shakers of the World to intimate interaction with rural dwellers, the strong pillars of African Agriculture. This swinging vocation, which Adesina pursued vigorously and passionately finally paid off as he was pronounced to be the winner of the most coveted global recognition in Agriculture – winner of the 2017 World Food Prize Laureate.

The prize award ceremony took place in a far away Des Moines, Iowa state of United State of America. It was done on 19^th October 2017 in the magnificent Iowa State Capitol building in Des Moines. Over 1,000 international guests, African - Americans and other citizens of USA graced the occasion. At the marvelous capitol building, an equivalent to government house in Nigeria, two past African Heads of governments; Mr. Olusugun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Mr. John Mahama of Ghana conspicuously honored the august gathering. Nigerian government was ably represented by delegation led by Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Hon. Heineken Lokpobiri.

The ceremony is deliberately set as part of the celebration to mark the World Food Day, which is a week series of activities starting from 16^th of October for each year. The prize consists of cash award of $250,000 and hand – carved sculpture created by the internationally acclaimed famous artist, Mr. Saul Bass. World Food Prize is awarded to exceptional achievers in fields involved in or related to the production and distribution of food and reduction of hunger. Generally, the criteria is drawn to meet the qualification set by the founder, Dr. Norman Borlaug who said "It is imperative that those individuals whose work has truly made a difference in the lives and well-being of large numbers of people are considered for this award". The award ceremony is equivalent to those of the Nobel Prize in Sweden and Norway, drawing at least 800 international guests. Each year, world-class performers take the stage to honor the World Food Prize Laureate, and the event is televised and webcast live. Past performers included Ray Charles, John Denver, Broadway star Leslie Odom Jr., the Tokyo String Quartet, the Kathak Gunjan dancers from India, and international and recording stars such as Chachi Tadesse of Ethiopia and Achinoam Nini (Noa) from Yemen. After the award presentation, the celebration continues at the Laureate Award Dinner, held in the rotunda of the Capitol. The 2017 award ceremony featured prominently the Aduni musical troupe from Lagos, Nigeria. Many USA based Africans especially Nigerians trooped to Des Moines to witness the auspicious event. No doubt, Adesina was a pride to Africa and a motivator to the young scientists across the globe. How did he make it to the top? It was a tortuous journey embedded with ups and downs, which lasted over two decades.

Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina was born on 6^th February 1960 to the family of Roland Folorunso Adesina and Eunice Adesina in the bounteous town of Ibadan, Oyo state capital, Nigeria. He was the second son to the family with four sons. He was raised in a communal one-room apartment without basic amenities of life. Although his grandfather and father worked as farm laborers, his father was eventually able to receive basic education, which led to his employment as a civil servant and provided the means to send his own sons to school. His father believed so much in education as a “leveler” out of poverty, a personal principle he cherished and used to sensitize his sons and members of the society to enroll in schools. Adesina as a son of low-income family had his basic education in a village school rather than a city school, which made him to face the reality of rural poverty experienced by smallholder farmers and their families. Perhaps, it was the lesson in his early life that shaped and made him to be the darling of rural farmers in Africa. All his life, he was and still accessible to the downtrodden and poor-resourced farmers.  His father wanted him to read medicine in the university, which made Adesina to write university entrance examination twice; and at both times, Adesina was offered admission to read agriculture. The father had to resign to fate and allowed the young Adesina to read agriculture as a divine choice. Perhaps, the father wanted his son to be called “doctor”, - a reason why Adesina wrote a letter to his father with bold inscription of “Dr. A. Adesina” when he completed his PhD program at Purdue University. Or perhaps, the father was just thinking that “medicine” was better than “agriculture” – a reason why the father, at one time, relaxed in Adesina’s residence called call - out his grandson (Adesina’s son) enthusiastically “Doctor” after the grandson’s graduation from medical school; Adesina, being a PhD holder, present at one corner of the same residence heard the call and answered “yes Daddy”. The father turned back and say “I am not referring to you but calling the real doctor”. Well, a kind of exultant outcome to the family, the father has both “Doctors”; (a PhD holder) and the real “Doctor”. Only that even the real Doctor, most of the times recommends to their patients to take their drugs after meals – signifying that food and nutrition (Agriculture) are the sound foundation to healthy (Medicine) body. Adesina reported this story to the pleasure of his audience during his interaction with higher school students under the auspices of Global Youth Institute at Dupont Pioneer, Carver Center, Des Moines, USA on 21^st October 2017. It was indeed a motivation to some us present at the occasion.

Adesina graduated with first-class honor in agricultural economics from the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolawo University), Ile – Ife, Nigeria where he reportedly top his class. After his service year, Adesina flew to United State of America for his postgraduate programs. He earned his Masters, (1985) and Ph.D. (1988) in Agricultural Economics at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. His postgraduate years at Purdue, as a postgraduate student with family were financially challenging. However, some professors and their families provided mentorship and part-times jobs, which sustained Adesina’s family. Twenty-seven years, after graduating from Purdue, the same university (Purdue) accorded Adesina with an honorary doctorate degree in 2015 as a recognition of an excellent alumnus.

 After successful graduation from his postgraduate programs, Adesina’s desire was to return to Africa. This is where his knowledge, acumen and skill were needed to assist smallholder farmers increase crop production and improve their livelihoods. Consequently, he secured a post-doctoral fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation in 1988. After his fellowship, he moved to West African Rice Development Association (WARDA) as Senior Economist from 1990 to 1995, Adesina served as Senior Economist in Bouake, Cote d’Ivoire—where Dr. Monty Jones (2004 World Food Prize Laureate) was breeding new rice varieties known as NERICA. From 1998 to 1995, Adesina served (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture) as Senior Economist at IITA in Ibadan, Nigeria.  In 1998, he returned to the Rockefeller Foundation as Senior Agricultural Scientist in New York, and a year later he was appointed the first Director of the Foundation’s newly opened Southern Africa Regional Office in Harare, Zimbabwe. In 2002, he became Rockefeller’s Associate Director, Food Security. He continued this formative stage and career - building until he became a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2011. As minister, he served diligently and attracted several accolades that moved him to the next level. Currently, he is serving as the 8^th President of African Development Bank with Headquarters in Cote d’Ivoire. This was a position he stepped into after serving as Nigeria’s minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. What are the spectacular reasons that qualified Dr. Akinwumi Adesina as the 2017 World Food Prize Laureate? How Nigeria and indeed the rest of Africa benefit from the prize won by Dr. Adesina? To be continued next week  

  

World Food Day: Food Security, Innovations and Challenges in Nigeria II

World Food Day: Food Security, Innovations and Challenges in Nigeria II

The 2015 population estimate for Nigeria was 186,988,000 with male population of 95,253,000 and female population of 91,734,000 and population density of 201.3 per square kilometer. As I am writing this article today, Sunday, 22^nd October 2017, at 11.25am American time, the Worldmeters population (www.worldmeters.info/world-population/nigeria-population), the famous tool for estimation of real-time population of countries globally estimated that Nigerian population had hit 192,425,377, moving towards having an estimated population of 450 million people in 2050. At conservative cost of N150 per plate of food per person per meal, a staggering amount of N116 billion Naira worth of food is required to feed this teeming population per day and 3.5 trillion Naira per month. For the purpose of analysis, let me give a vivid picture of the enormity to feed Nigerian population today for a meal of rice alone without the additives. It requires 24.1 million metric tons of milled rice to serve the estimated number of 192 million people for a single meal on the assumption that 100 kg of rice can serve 800 people. What are the innovations and challenges to food security in Nigeria?

What is food security? Defining food security precisely is very difficult and there are more than 200 definitions and 450 indicators of food security. According to the 1996 World Food Summit "food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle. In another context, the World Health Organization (WHO) maintained that "food security means that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to enough food for an active, healthy living…” Therefore, attaining food security means that consumption and production of food should be governed by social values that are just and equitable as well as moral and ethical. This way the ability to acquire food by all can be ensured. In addition, the food should be nutritionally adequate, personally and culturally acceptable; and the food should also be obtained in a manner that upholds human dignity. No matter how food security is defined, having enough to eat regularly for active and healthy life is the most essential human need. Many developing countries, especially in South Asia and Africa, are yet to fulfill this vital need. However, some basic components of food security should guide us to examine the innovations to achieve food security in Nigeria. What are the essential components of food security? The components are basically three. The first is quality implying that the food is safe, healthy and of nutritious value. The second is the quantity implying that the food is enough to lead a healthy and active lifestyle. The third is availability implying that a person has financial capability to purchase the food where one lives. That means the food has to be accessible and affordable without strain of constraint. Thus, every food security program targeted to a given community must contain these basic components to qualify it as “a standard food security project”.

In Nigeria, from the year of Independence to date, there were several innovations to attain food security for the country in form of programs and projects mostly championed by the Federal Government. One of such program was the National Accelerated Food Production Program (NAFPP). This was a well-conceptualized strategy that incorporated research, extension and input supply (through a network of agro-service centers) and farmers. Another one was Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), introduced in 1976 as a strategy to substantially increase food production and availability on sustainable manner. The establishment of The River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs) across the nation was another effort. The responsibilities of Extension services were removed from them in 1985 and their farmers were presumed to benefit from the extension services of ADP within their catchment areas. This caused a huge vacuum that led to poor and inefficient performance of RBDAs. Yet another effort was the Green Revolution, launched in 1979 to replace the OFN. The primary objective of the program was to achieve food self-sufficiency for Nigeria within a target of five years. However, the approach placed emphasis on input supply, improvement of infrastructure and provision of price incentives. Alongside Green Revolution, another effort was the introduction of Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs) as an extension approach.  A pilot project was started in 1975 at three enclaves; Funtua, Gombe and Gusau, respectively.  The ADP extension system was based on the premise that a combination of essential factors comprising of the right technology, effective extension, access to physical production-enhancing inputs, adequate market and other infrastructure facilities are essential to achieve food security. The ADP system uses Training and Visit extension delivery system, which recorded huge success with World Bank support funds. The success led to establishment of the enclave ADPs in six more states. By 1989, the ADP system had become statewide and covered the whole nation providing extension services at the grassroots. The strategy worked and recorded tangible success nationwide while the World Bank support lasted.

One of the defects of the ADP system was its crop-bias on introduction. The correction of this defect led to the introduction of the Unified Agricultural Extension Services (UAES) in 1989. The correction made provision for the inclusion to the other sectors, such as livestock, fisheries, forestry and natural resource management. Thus, under ADP system, one village extension agent (VEA) is expected to deliver extension messages in all agricultural disciplines to the farmers. This was informed by the need to remove the problems of conflicting messages to the clientele by multiple agents. It was also expected to make the system cost-effective by eliminating duplication of efforts.

Some of the recent efforts worth mentioning are Nigeria Special Program for Food Security (NSPFS), Nigeria Root and Tuber Expansion Program (RTEP), National Agricultural Land development Authority (NALDA), Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) and few others by states governments. In additions to all these programs, there are also several breakthroughs in machinery inventions and technology innovations related agricultural development and food security in Nigeria as reported in my past artcles in this Column, which can be accessed via www.breakthroughwithmkothman.blogspot.com. However, these efforts were tried with insignificant impacts on the Nigerian farming system as farmers still largely use hand tools to cultivate their lands. The nation is still incapable of attaining the status of food secured nation and food items are still massively imported. Some of the challenges for the poor performance of these efforts are:

1.     Planning was a top-down with no involvement of the clientele

2.    There was poor or no linkage with research centers in all the approaches resulting in the development of inappropriate technologies,

3.    Conflicting roles of extension –education and law enforcement,

4.    A flawed extension philosophy, which saw the farmers as “traditional, fatalistic, ignorant and resistant” to change,

5.    Some of the approaches such as RBDAs failed due to lack of focus and diversification of efforts that could not be sustained,

6.    Some of the approaches followed one another in quick successions, left the rural populace probably more confused and undecided as there were too many instructions coming from government agencies,

7.    Some of the approaches such as ADP system proved to be very expensive hence the serious management problems after the withdrawal of the world Bank support to the projects,

8.    The farmers involvements and participation in technology development remains low as there was no effective means of feedback

9.    And several other reasons

To address these concerns, an extension and research institute was upgraded to examine the various approaches, in addition to capacity building of extension personnel to meet the emerging challenges of extension delivery services. That institute was Extension Research Liaison Services (ERLS), a section of Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR), which was upgraded to National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS) in 1987.