By Kazi Nanyah

Nigeria has a huge potential in agriculture with 84 million hectares of arable land, abundant labour, untapped water resources and a market of 167 million people. However, less than 40% of the arable land is cultivated and Nigeria has become a net importer of food, spending over USD10 billion per annum in the importation of wheat, rice, sugar and fish.

This is why Mr. Thomas G. Moupshin, the Plateau State Project Co-ordinator, Potato Value Chain Support Project, (an African Development Bank Funded Projects in the Agriculture Sector) mentioned that farmers in Plateau State have made significant gains by adopting improved crop varieties and farming practices, but productivity has not come close to full potential along the commodity value chains.

Mr. Thomas G. Moupshin who was speaking recently in Jos during the official launching and distribution of 500 Unit of irrigation water pumps to farmers (Phase 1); reiterated that infrastructures are on ground at 95 percent completion across the potato producing LGAs of Plateau State, notable amongst which is the Tissue Culture Laboratory.

He opined that a deliberate and targeted support for value addition through processing, better nutritious product and market linkages to improve farm profits and incomes are critical for enhanced productivity along the continuum from subsistence to commercial agriculture. 

Plateau State accounts for 80 – 90% of potato production in Nigeria. The Jos-Plateau has the favourable climatic condition for potato production; hence the Federal Government deemed it right to established an out station of the National Root Crop Research Institute (NRCRI) on potato programme at Kuru, Plateau State. In 1991 about 400,000 tonnes was produced in Nigeria. Current production estimate is about 800,000 tonnes. 
Plateau State recognises the need to explore their comparative advantage in agriculture to move the vision of transforming the state economic fortunes for the better. The agenda of the present Plateau State Government is to diversify into agriculture through supporting an intervention that the State has comparative advantage to boost economic activities in the State, region and nation; yield the desired goal of employment generation; improve competitiveness of the potato commodity value chain; and increase incomes of the commodity value chain stakeholders. 

Also Speaking at the event, the Honourable Commissioner, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Plateau State, Dr. Hosea Finangwai expressed joy and applauded the African Development Bank for its committed to supporting the objectives of the ATA and the APP through its on-going projects.

He explained that the proposed Potato Value Chain Support Project will contribute to the APP’s strategic pillar of promoting agricultural investment and financing agricultural development projects. The project will contribute employment generation and shared wealth creation along the potato commodity value chain. Overall, the project will benefit at least 100,000 farm families in the 11-major potato producing local government areas of Plateau State. 

The NewsGate Magazine’s investigation revealed that the overall goal of the Potato Value Chain Support Project is to contribute to employment generation and shared wealth creation along the potato commodity value chain, as well food security through increased access to rural infrastructure.

It is pivotal to note that the project’s specific objective is to increase, on a sustainable basis, the income of smallholder farmers and rural entrepreneurs that are engaged in the production, processing, storage and marketing of Potato. 

 The Plateau State Potato Value Chain Project can be seen and understood from the perspective of its broadly divided Components; the Infrastructure Development component which entails the rehabilitation of existing production infrastructure; restoration of community infrastructure such as access roads, diffused storage stores, small earth dams, processing centres, community markets and establishment of tissue culture laboratory for seed tubers production.

The second component has to do with Capacity Building Support; it aims at enhancing agricultural productivity and production using science and technology, capacity development to strengthen the sector institutions (public, private and community-based institutions) to deliver quality services to potato commodity value chain actors. Activities under this component includes training of beneficiaries in methodologies for post-harvest losses reduction, food processing, business and entrepreneurship, prevention and management of common potato diseases; climate smart agriculture, climate information services, market information services, sanitation and hygiene practices; and promote access of beneficiaries to financial services; and adaptive research.

To achieve this component of the project, the project has gone into partnership with the German Technical Cooperation (GIZ), National Root Crop Research Institute Kuru (NRCRI), University of Jos Potato Research Centre, private organisations and other development partners in the State. 

The third component of the project deals with the Project Management and Coordination aspects of the project. This component entails the day-to-day management of the project based on adequate results measurement framework.
The Potato Value Chain Support Project involves construction and rehabilitation of critical infrastructure (access roads, culverts, small earth dams, diffused storage stores, community markets, processing units among others) to reduce agricultural production costs and enhance market access.
Agricultural production and productivity enhancing activities will be supported through better management of agricultural extension services and the building of the capacities of service providers for sustainable supply of quality farm inputs, reduction of post-harvest losses and assure output markets for farmers.

Key impacts of the project are additional incomes to an increased number of producers and entrepreneurs in the region by the creation of about 60,000 jobs along the value chain of priority commodity; and improve productivity along the commodity value chain to its full potential.
The Potato Value Chain Support project covers Eleven Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Plateau State namely; Bassa, Jos North, Jos South, Jos East, Riyom, Barkin Ladi, Bokkos, Mangu, Pankshin, Shendam & Langtang North. The LGAs were selected based on their relative potato production capacities.
Similarly, the Plateau State Coordinator of the Potato Value Chain hinted that the programme covers the entire 17 LGAs of the State and not only those mentioned earlier. In November 2019 the Potato Value Chain Programme in Plateau State tried the production of Potato under the dry season irrigation in the six LGAs of Plateau South Zone;Kanam and Pankshin in the Plateau Central Zone in addition to the traditional Plateau Northern Zone where hitherto Potato is largely grown and it was very successful. This means that Potatoes can be produced all year round in the State. It was done in conjunction with the National Roots Crop Research Institute, Kuru, Jos. Three farmers in each LGA were used for the demonstration exercise.
The Plateau State Potato Value Chain Programme also had field days in Langtang South, Kanam and Shendam LGAs.The demonstration was quite successful because three rows were used under different treatments. Three varieties of Potatoes were used namely Marabel,Lady Crystal and Carusso.
The dry season irrigation of the potatoes has to be in the cold season between November to January, that is within three months only. Anything outside the the three cold season wouldn't produce the desired results.
Plateau State has three processing centres in Mangu, Heipang and Bokkos where the Potatoes are processed into Chips,Springles and Flour.
It is worthy of note that the Plateau State Potato Value Chain Programme is constructing 200 Kilometre of rural roads across the State to ease the transportation of inputs and farm produce.The programme is largely involved in Spring Capture,Water Harvesting Structure and small earth dams construction to aid farmers and their families.