The Development Gateway and other stakeholders have launched a fertilizer dashboard for Nigeria under the Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA).
Under this project, the dashboard collects the data on Nigerian fertilizer which includes the consumption, price, retail and others.
The VIFAA Project Manager in Nigeria for Development Gateway, Beverley Hatcher-Mbu said it is a multi-country program supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
She explained that “essentially the dashboard gathers key data on Nigeria’s, fertilizer sector on price, and consumption and product availability and makes it easy to use easy to access, and free to the public. So anybody, private sector, public sector, can use it.
“We worked closely with the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) that has an office here in Nigeria. So they both collect their own data, including retail price and they also work closely in what we call the fertilizer technical working group to ensure that all key actors agree on the key data points that show up on the dashboard.
“The key outcome is that if everybody starts from the same point with their data then they can make the same kinds of decisions.
“So it’s not that public sector and private sector use different data and are trying to figure out what the best part is forward. Now, it’s clear that Nigeria has moved from being an imported to an exporter. So how does that change the decisions that companies make? How does that change the decisions that the public sector makes, we want everybody to have the best, most trustworthy data available to make decisions together? So that’s really for us, the key output of this dashboard”.
Also, the Registrar/CEO of the Nigeria Institute of Soil Science, Professor Victor Chude said the program which has a 4-year life span, will address the supply, and demand and use of fertilizer data in Nigeria.
“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in partnership with the AfricaFertilizer.org, the International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC), and the African Fertilizer and Agro Business Partnership are jointly working on this 4-year program to holistically address the supply-demand and use of fertilizer data in Nigeria and regions across Africa.
“During the period of the initiation of these programs, the partners have collaborated with the private sector, government agencies, research institutions and other development partners to address the Key data and data supply gaps to fill in supporting strategic decision making in the Nigerian fertilizer sector,” he noted.
In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Ernest Umakhihe said significant progress has been made in the last few years to unlock the enormous potentials of the Fertilizer industry.
He said the private sector has been positioned to drive the industry through the complete liberalization of the sector and the banning of importation of finished Mineral fertilizers containing two or three of the fertilizer elements – nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium from entering into the country.
“This has to a greater extent helped the domestication of the blending of NPK Fertilizer in Nigeria. Furthermore, the National Fertilizer Quality (Control) (NFQC) Act, 2019, and the regulations were signed to further strengthen the Industry.
“The implementation of the Fertilizer Act and the regulations have commenced with the registration of the fertilizer operators. In addition, we have started developing a system that would capture production, sales, carryover stocks, price collection, lab assessments, upgrades, among others”, he noted.
Umakhihe said to facilitate swift data collection, the Ministry has established the fertilizer Inspectorate Unit which will in addition to working as foot soldiers in the implementation of the Fertilizer Act and regulations at the state level, will also be collecting fertilizer data.
“This effort has been boosted with the coming of the VIFAA Nigeria Dashboard which can harness and analyze data from different sources aside from the Ministry.
“The Ministry has been a key partner in the VIFAA Program since its inception. Members from the Departments of the Farm Input Support Services and Agricultural Land and Climate Change participated in the co-design workshop in 2019 to generate ideas for the dashboard; provided feedback while the dashboard was undergoing development in 2020; during which various meetings were held with the VIFAA partners to identify opportunities for further collaboration”, the Permanent Secretary added.
Also speaking, the Chairman Senate Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Abdullahi Adamu said when there is no seed there is no plant and when you don’t have fertilizer, there is no way to enrich the soil to give what you are growing.
“The Private Sector in Nigeria is awakening in this space. In regards to urea, Nigeria has become a global leader in the production of nitrogen fertilizer thanks to expanded investments,” he said.
Senator Adamu who was represented by Senator Muhammad Enagi, said fertilizer plays a key role in addressing improved yields and improved profitability for our farmers.
“We should no longer be arguing which is better 20-10-10 or 15-15-15. Those products in the past were imported to take advantage of economies of scale by filling a vessel overseas to have a generic NPK that could be used across all of our major cereal crops,” he noted.
However, we now have the technologies embedded in our domestic blending plants to produce NPK products that address the need for horticulture crops in Plateau State or yams in Nasarawa State.
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