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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In 1999-2002, I was a cabinet member in Katsina State Government. When I was preparing our first\u00a0budget, I was unsettled by the past trends in government support for\u00a0agriculture.<\/p>\n
Year in year out, 80% of the\u00a0budget\u00a0for\u00a0agriculture\u00a0went into fertilizers procurement. Knowing the\u00a0requirements\u00a0of\u00a0agriculture\u00a0as I did then, I felt that I needed to interrogate the\u00a0tendency\u00a0to give so much financial support to one need out of 20 clearly identified necessities of the sector.<\/p>\n
I appointed consultants to go round farmers all over the state to generate a list of their actual needs. They came back with 20 items. I directed them to return to the farmers for the ranking of those needs from the most to the least important. The outcome shocked me to the marrow of my weak bones.<\/p>\n
Fertilizers were ranked #13. Desertification was ranked #1; extension service was #2; market\/profitability was #3. Subsidy was not identified as a requisite.<\/p>\n
The findings made me to become very interested in the desertification phenomenon. I read a number of reference materials with very authoritative conclusions.<\/p>\n
A recurring conclusion drawn from\u00a0evidences\u00a0gathered in the field was that OPEN GRAZING was a key factor responsible for destroying 90% of the vegetation cover in Northern Nigeria from 1960 to 2000.<\/p>\n
If we can help it, this destructive trend that\u2019s making our\u00a0environment\u00a0increasingly hostile to all fauna and flora must be arrested and reversed. It must also not be imported to Southern Nigeria.<\/p>\n
I later personally followed up on many practicing farmers and\u00a0researchers\u00a0on why desertification was an important factor in\u00a0agriculture. Both respondents minced no words in affirming that desertification was responsible for the destruction of topsoil which was held to be a\u00a0major\u00a0cause\u00a0of falling farm yield<\/p>\n
Tanimu Yakubu was Special\u00a0Advisor\u00a0on Economic Matters to President Umaru Musa Yar’adua<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1999-2002, I was a cabinet member in Katsina State Government. When I was preparing our first\u00a0budget, I was unsettled by the past trends in government support for\u00a0agriculture. Year in year out, 80% of the\u00a0budget\u00a0for\u00a0agriculture\u00a0went into fertilizers procurement. Knowing the\u00a0requirements\u00a0of\u00a0agriculture\u00a0as I did then, I felt that I needed to interrogate the\u00a0tendency\u00a0to give so much financial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n