Formal Commissioning Ceremony Of Pangaric Novum Farms In Nasarawa State

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SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE FORMAL COMMISSIONING CEREMONY OF PANGARIC NOVUM FARMS IN NASARAWA STATE ON FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2022

PROTOCOLS

I want to begin by thanking His Excellency, Governor Abdullahi Sule for very kindly supporting the development of such a monumental agriculture project in his State. I would also thank the people of Panda Local Government, led by the Paramount Chief, HRH, Barrister Joel Aninge Odyong Nyankpa, for your farsightedness in encouraging the location of this project here.

I bring you warm compliments from His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, who as you know passionately believes in the role of our agriculture sector as a key driver of job creation and economic growth.

In fulfilment of one of its key mandates, the NSIA has over the last ten years invested in different subsectors of the agriculture value chain. In 2014, the Fund for Agricultural Finance in Nigeria (“FAFIN”) was established by NSIA in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development and the KfW.

In 2016, His Excellency, President Muhammudu Buhari set up the Presidential Initiative (PFI), a programme targeted at addressing the challenges in the basic input-value chain for agriculture. NSIA was enlisted by His Excellency as the project implementing entity.

Over its 5-year run, the Fertiliser (2017 -2021), program delivered over 30 million 50kg bags of NPK 20:10:10 fertiliser to Nigerian farmers, resuscitated the fertiliser blending industry, reviving over 60 otherwise moribund plans scattered across the country, created hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs, enabled us to conserve our foreign exchange by import substitution amounting to over US$100million.

With a now active sector, the NSIA role was moved upstream when the program was restructured in 2022. The NAIC-NPK Ltd which was the SPV through which the NSIA ran the program was acquired by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI).

In 2018, the NSIA invested US$5.0 million in Babban Gona – a high impact, scalable agricultural franchise that seeks to sustainably improve the lives of smallholder farmers through the provision of:  i) credit, ii) inputs, training in good agricultural practices, iii) harvesting and storage services, and iv) marketing services.

To bring us back to the reason we are all here today, in 2017 the NSIA established an Agriculture Development Fund (the “Fund”) under a 50:50 joint venture with the Old Mutual Group of South Africa in 2017, with a commitment of US$50 million (US$25 million each) towards the development and investment in large- scale agriculture projects, combined with out-grower schemes, in areas that address both unemployment, local production growth and food security

In 2018, the Fund committed US$29 million towards the acquisition and two-phased development of the Pandagric Novum Farms (“Pandagric” or “the Project”), an animal feed processing business with backward integration through the farming of maize and soybean.

Between 2018 and now, despite the global challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fund has successfully completed the development of Pandagric Novum Farms.

Some of the key milestones achieved under this project are:

– the installation of a 147,000 metric ton per annum capacity poultry feed mill;

– the installation of 75,000 tons of storage infrastructure in the form of two silos, six bunkers, as well as 35,000 tons of raw material and finished goods storage;

– the installation of 750ha of center pivot irrigation systems;

– the leasing of 3,500ha of land for the cultivation of maize and soyabeans;

– the construction of a 1.4 million cubic meter reservoir for water management; and

– the successful planting of 856ha of maize in the 2021 wet farming season and now, as you may have seen as you arrived, 1,200ha of maize during the 2022 wet farming season.

In addition to these commendable achievements, Pandagric also:

-built boreholes for all six of its neighbouring communities;

– developed an out-grower scheme, providing inputs and training to over 500 smallholder farmers;

– employs almost 800 direct staff and 2,000 indirect staff, making it the largest contributor of PAYE to Nasarawa State; and today, has the largest maize farm across the country.

I must say that I am very pleased that one of the agencies of Government shares our administration’s vision for agriculture and has begun investing in the sector on such a huge scale.

The completion of Pandagric further underscores the opportunity for commercial-scale agriculture in Nigeria, reiterates our capacity to attract foreign investment and serves as a testament to the quality of leadership at the NSIA.

At this juncture, I would like to congratulate and commend the hard work and diligence of the Board and Management of the NSIA and Pandagric Novum on the successful completion of this fantastic project. I must equally commend their Partners, the team from Old Mutual’s Asset Managers, Signature Agric Investments, who not only part financed this Project, but also ensured it has been developed and operates at the highest international levels of technical capacity.

What you see today confirms that there is opportunity in Nigeria for investments in agriculture. While government commits to creating an enabling environment, we will look to the private sector for investments to galvanize growth in the sector. We must indeed, work together to redefine agriculture for the future in Nigeria.

Once again, I say thank you to the sponsors of this great project, and encourage you to see this achievement, no matter how great, as only the beginning of what is possible in our great nation.

I thank you for your time and wish you great success in the future.