Nigeria Loses $1.2bn Daily To Oil Thieves – Prof Eshett

The former deputy vice chancellor, University of Science and Technology, Owerri, Prof Ebong Thomas Eshett has disclosed that Nigeria was losing about 400,000 barrels per day to oil thieves and vandals which is approximately $1.2 billion.

This is even as he called on President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency in the ailing power sector saying that steady power supply had remained impossible in Nigeria since 1960.
He made this revelation in Abuja yesterday during the 10th anniversary celebration of “African Icon of Our Generation Award,” organised by Accolade Communications Limited, Lagos in collaboration with International Centre for Comparative Leadership for Africans and Blacks in Diaspora.

In his presentation titled, Reforming, Restructuring and Re-Positioning Nigeria for True Greatness and Sustainable Economic Development, he advocated for the review of jumbo salaries paid to legislators and other public office holders and channel the excess monies into projects that would alleviate poverty and create employment for the masses.

Eshett who was the deputy chairman of 2009 Agriculture and Food Security Thematic Group of Vision 20:2020, urged the federal government to urgently re-visit and implement the recommendations made by the group adding that the committee members should be co-opted into the implementation team.

According to him, the unfortunate relegation of agriculture to the background, unbalanced distribution of developmental projects across the geo-political zones, economic marginalisation of some sections of the country are deeply responsible for retarding growth in the country.

He lamented that billions of dollars were periodically smuggled out of Nigeria and stacked away in foreign banks noting that the ill-gotten monies are used to purchase expensive landed property or to establish businesses abroad that would help in boosting the economy of foreign countries at the detriment of Nigeria economy.

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‘Nigeria Spends $1.5bn Annually on Importation of Tomato Products’

 

 

To benefit from new high-yield tomato seeds

 

By George Okoh in Makurdi

Director General and CEO of the Raw Material and Research and Development Council (RMRDC) Dr. Husaini Ibrahim, has revealed that Nigeria spends around $1.5 billion annually on tomato products importation from China and other parts of the world.

Ibrahim said such imports were unsustainable following the economic downturn befalling the country, and added that the country can reverse the trend with the introduction of improved seeds that yield more in dry season farming.

Also, to address the problem of acute shortage of tomato vegetables and boost Nigeria foreign currency earning, the council introduced improved and certified high yielding tomato seeds to various Growers Associations in the country.

Ibrahim, represented by a Consultant with RMRDC, Dr. Usman Argungu Hassan, disclosed these yesterday while addressing farmers in Lafia, and said the essence of introducing the improved seeds is to boost its production in the country.

“In Nigeria in spite of all the comparative advantage the country has in all year round tomato production, we are largely dependent on importation of tomato paste and other tomato products from China and other exporting countries, which is unacceptable”, he said.

According to Ibrahim, the council has developed a robust monitoring and evaluating plan in conjunction with the Nasarawa state government to ensure productivity in crop production.

Earlier, while welcoming the DG to the event, the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Agriculture Nasarawa State, Mr. Naphthali Dachor commended the council for researching and improving the tomato seed, which is reportedly resistant to diseases and pest.

He advised famers in the state to go into dry season farming using irrigation technique for bountiful harvest. He disclosed that during dry season crops like tomato yield twice as much as it does during the raining season.

Dachor also called on the council to assist farmers in the state by setting up a tomato production factory in order to check wastage of produce.

Responding on behalf of farmers, Mr. Ali Adamu said with the introduction of the new seeds, farmers in the state will increase their efforts and hope for a bountiful yield in March 2016.

 source

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Nigerian Catfish Farmers Can Save The Nigerian Economy, But Does Our Govt Care?

Developing nations of the world depend mainly on the primary sectors of the economy which basically are mining and agriculture.
The situation in Nigeria is not different, only that the majority of Nigeria’s working population depends on agriculture more than mining. Agriculture is the most important sector of Nigeria’s economy, and research shows that about 70% of Nigeria’s labour force is engaged in agriculture.

The agricultural sector in Nigeria is mainly dominated by the aged (50+ and retirees), but a sector that is appealing to Nigerian youths is the catfish farming sector. The reasons for this are not far-fetched:

• It is easy to set up a catfish farm compared to other sectors of agriculture
• It is less strenuous than other types of agriculture
• It can be done on part-time basis with returns guaranteed; it isn’t unusual to find people involved with catfish farming in addition to full time jobs
• You can recoup your capital and interest within a short time-frame; typically between 3 – 6 months
• There’s readily available market for catfish produce

The sector offering opportunities

Since the early nineties, people have been going into catfish farming increasing awareness about catfish, and many Nigerians now see it as a substitute to imported fish.

The self-employment that has been the outcry of the Nigerian government can never be actualized in other sectors of the economy except the agricultural sector, catfish farming in particular. Hence, many unemployed youths have embraced this opportunity to be self-employed in this sector.

In our findings, we discovered that there are over 13 different areas that Nigerians are gainfully employed in the catfish farming sector. These include: 1) pond construction, 2) breeding, 3) feed milling, 4) selling of input, 5) marketing of fresh fish, 6) setting up of fish processing factory, 7) importation, 8) marketing of floating feed, 9) repairing of implements (e.g. pumping machines), 10) consultancy services, 11) work opportunities for farm attendants, 12) transportation and logistics, 13) harvesting.

It will be folly for any reasonable government to neglect a sector that provides so many opportunities for the unemployed, which is why Nigerian farmers are crying for a saviour at this critical moment.

Until recent times, Nigerian catfish farmers have been able to overcome their numerous challenges and thrive. They are now beset with so many challenges that are threatening the industry, and unless the Nigerian government comes in, the once promising industry has a gloomy future.

Some of the challenges in Nigeria’s fish farming sector that need urgent intervention from the government

• One of the major challenges of the moment is the low quality of imported inputs (raw materials), some of which include fish meal (72%, 68% and 65%), soya meal, methionine, lysine and other minor ingredients.

A recent informal survey conducted between January and July this year shows that imported materials are not yielding as much as locally available materials which have not been available due to the Nigeria’s internal Boko Haram crisis. This was further aggravated when the border was closed during the 2015 elections.
Imported fish feeds are not exempt, and a 2012 study of imported floating fish feeds revealed that the actual proximate composition of fish feeds, when analyzed in the lab, was inferior to what was declared by the companies producing the feeds. Four brands were analyzed and fish feed sold by one of the brands, Adolf Calyx, contained just 25.89% crude protein while the company declared 42% crude protein on their label. To the unsuspecting farmer, this discrepancy can have catastrophic effects.

• Even some of the locally sourced ingredients have been adulterated. For example, there has not been pure GNC for a long time now. What is sold as GNC is either blended with Bern seed, rice meal, shea butter, or other less proteinous ingredients.

In fact, findings of an informal survey of catfish farmers in various parts of southwest Nigeria, show a good majority of them are now running at a loss since the first half of this year, and the increasing unavailability of ingredients and degradation of the quality of available ingredients is playing no mean feat in this.
Bearing in mind that some of these people took loans from commercial banks with high interest rates above 20%, it makes no sense to continue the business if it is unprofitable, and this is leading to an exodus in the catfish farming sector.

• The fish breeders have not been helping the situation in any way. As a result of increase in demand for fingerlings and juveniles, many breeders now use inferior broodstock to breed for innocent farmers. Some even do in-breeding, bearing in mind that the quality of fingerlings and juveniles depends on the parent stock. Little wonder farmers are not getting results like before. The size that can be attained in six months before now may not be attained in eight months. Due to this, many farmers have been unable to recoup their capital within a reasonable period of time.
• The current structure of the market for catfish is not helping the situation in any way. There are few individuals that dictate the pace of this business instead of the force of demand and supply. Many economists may argue with this fact, but what should a farmer do when middlemen purchase on credit and refuse to pay? In fact, it isn’t uncommon for few individuals, especially middlemen, to meet and fix the price of the outputs.

In an ideal economy, the price of inputs should determine the price of outputs but this is not the case with the catfish farming industry in Nigeria. The price of the output is often not in agreement with the price of input. A farmer could raise his fishes when the price of inputs are sky high only to sell when the price of outputs has dropped, often resulting in a loss, and nothing is being done to check this.
To sustain the current government policy banning importation of certain items that include fish products, the Nigerian government must do something to save this sector of the economy.

Proposed solutions

1. The Nigerian government should make use of existing institutional frameworks saddled with the responsibility of regulating and standardizing inputs and raw materials. For example, bodies like the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) and NAFDAC should be proactive at ensuring the quality of inputs entering the country and produced in the country, to ensure that the stated quality are in accordance with what is declared.

2. Research institutes should be established, or empowered, to produce quality broodstock and make them widely available to local breeders to use nationwide. When establishing these institutes, the government should consider areas with is a high concentration of catfish farmers. This will ensure the availability of their produce to the breeders and farmers.

3. The government should be involved in marketing and distribution of the products of the outputs. This can be achieved through price boards and other regulations and controls to ensure stability in catfish production and also the availability of these products all year round.

Conclusion

If the catfish farming sector is ignored and subsequently collapses, the Nigerian government will be dealing a major blow to the agricultural sector that currently employs the highest number of the Nigerian populace. Therefore, all hands must be on deck to ensure the sustainability of this emerging industry.

Bamidele Onibalusi

This article was contributed by Bamidele Onibalusi, with massive input from the veteran of the Nigerian catfish farming industry, Abiodun Eniola Elusoji. Mr Onibalusi is a blogger and freelance writer who has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Fast Company, Digital Journal, and the Guardian. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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Food Scarcity May Hit Nigeria Soon

Blessing Oladele from the Agriculture and Allied Employees’ Union of Nigeria,  has asked the federal government to heed the warning given by the Nigeria Meteorological Agency that the country may experience food scarcity due to low rainfall in 2015, The Punch reports.

Oladele on Wednesday, August 19, stated that the low rainfall experienced in the South-West and North, known to be agriculture zones, called for serious concern.

He said: “The states in the South-West, particularly Ekiti, have very low rainfall this year and it has started manifesting. So, our governments must invest in our dams, so that we can have irrigation projects that can respond to this kind of situation. My task is to ensure that agriculture is repositioned in the South-West, and we shall achieve that. I am encouraging members of all the unions, including the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress, to invest in farming and we are receiving warm reception.Fayose’s stomach infrastructure policy has become a brand and we have to embrace it. The only alternative to our economic survival now is farming, which is food production, and we have to live by that reality.”

Oladele urged the federal government to seek alternative means of water supply to boost food production by investing hugely in irrigation projects across the country.

 source

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Nigeria Can Earn N5tn From Agriculture

 

Adebayo Sangobiyi, Shonga Farm Holdings Limited general manager, thinks that Nigeria can achieve national food security and earn about N5trillion foreign exchange from agricultural exports as well as create massive employment with the adoption of commercial agriculture.

On Thursday, August 20, Sangobiyi said that it was imperative for the country to have a well-articulated and strategic agricultural master plan that should be strictly implemented to boost the nation’s transformation in the sector.

The media source reports that the general manager canvassed the adoption of the Shonga Farm model as a national agricultural strategy, because such a measure could make Nigeria compare favourably with the United States and the United Kingdom in agricultural production and exports.

READ ALSO: Why Food Scarcity May Hit Nigeria Soon

Sangobiyi said: “If we face agriculture squarely, there will be industrialisation; with that, the economy will be transformed. Even at the national level, the Gross Domestic Product will improve and we will do less of importation.Shonga Farms had intensified its expansion programme with the aim of reducing the food import dependency of Nigeria. The concept of the farm was for them to understudy the white farmers, adding that by the time they are big enough they should buy them.”

He further claimed that his intention is to start the Alapa project with the indigenes.
The official believes that Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has already started it by selecting 10 farmers from each of the 16 local government areas of the state.

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Dixon’s deep roots in agriculture remain strong

DIXON — Lambtown and Dairy City are just two of the nicknames that denote Dixon’s strong agricultural roots.

The town should have been named Dicksonville after pioneer Thomas Dickson who donated 10 acres of his land for a railroad depot, but a mistake on the spelling of the town’s name on a shipment of merchandise in 1872 got the community’s identity changed to the simpler Dixon.

Dixon’s agricultural heritage derives from its located in the Dixon Ridge farming area, which has some of Solano County’s most fertile soil that allows farmers to grow everything from tomatoes to alfalfa, ranchers to run cattle and sheep, and orchardists to grow almonds and walnuts.

The community keeps its farming heritage alive with such events as the annual May Fair, which began in the late 1800s and is the longest continually running agriculture fair in California, and attractions founded more recently such as the Cool Pumpkin Patch corn maze, reputedly the world’s largest.

Solano County has a 548-acre area zoned for agricultural services next to Dixon. This area is to be home to processing plants and other businesses that help the farming economy.

Dixon has become more suburban in recent decades, with subdivisions swelling its population of commuters who travel to Davis and the Sacramento area to work.

The city, which was incorporated in 1878, has 18,315 residents as of the 2010 census, of which 40 percent are Hispanic of any race. Of the non-Hispanic population, 49 percent are white, 2.7 percent black, 3.5 percent Asian, 3.2 percent two or more races and the remainder Pacific Islander and other categories, according to the 2010 census.

The median age of Dixon’s population is 32 years old and its median income in $71,122.

Dixon almost became home to a major horse-racing center, but residents voted that down on the grounds they liked their town the way it was. The city also courted the idea of trying to land a movie studio that would have been built on the south side of town and produce family films, but the studio never came about.
Dixon was born in 1851 when pioneer Elija Silvey founded the town of Silveyville, which was located a few miles from present-day Dixon. He set up a hotel and saloon for mule teams traveling between San Francisco and the gold fields in the Sierra Nevada and put up a red lantern to make certain people could find it.

By 1865, Silveyville had about 150 residents and boasted a store, blacksmith shop and a post office, with Silvey serving as postmaster. But the Central Pacific railroad came through in 1868 several miles away and Silveyville died. A new town sprung up along the railroad tracks, with people moving many of the Silveyville buildings there on rollers.

In a twist of irony, one of the few buildings to survive from Silveyville was a church that was too large to be hauled over the railroad tracks. When a massive fire burned down much of Dixon, the church survived quite literally because it was on the wrong side of the tracks.

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Europe’s agriculture could be transformed by the internet of things

 

Waterford’s TSSG is bidding to lead a €30m EU-wide pilot focused on how smart technologies and the internet of things could transform Europe’s agricultural landscape.

Waterford Institute of Technology’s TSSG, as part of the eDIGIREGION project, is leading and hosting a major Agriculture 4.0: The Internet of Things Boosting Regional Innovation workshop at ICT 2015 – Innovation, Connect, Transform in Lisbon in late October.

This is the biggest ICT event in the EU calendar and all the big names in the global ICT market will be present.

TSSG will also be making its pitch at the Lisbon event to lead a €30m EU-wide pilot on the internet of things (IoT) and its potential impact in agriculture.

‘New investment in agritech is passing out clean tech and fintech’
^{– BRIAN FOLEY}

The Irish contingent feels its track record in the sector gives it a distinct competitive advantage. TSSG plans to put together a consortium at the Lisbon event to make a strong case to lead the pilot.

The TSSG-led session will see key delegates discuss current, unsolved challenges and identify where ICT and the interlinked, data-sharing elements of the IoT have the greatest opportunity to stimulate innovation, capacity and growth within all the regions of Europe.

“Leveraging advances in ICT in traditional industries is a frequently untapped source of value added that has the potential to give those who grasp it first a real, global advantage,” said TSSG’s workshop host Brian Foley.

Smart agriculture

Brian Foley from TSSG, who will be spearheading efforts to lead a €30m EU-wide smart agriculture project

“Such a potential is clear today in agriculture, where ICT advances are enticing businesses to rethink their processes along the full value chain – from farm to fork – and consider a vast array of innovations.

“ICT also has the capability to boost food security and food safety, energy efficiency, overall efficiency and sustainability of resources. We are only at the beginning of realising the potential of ICT in agriculture. It is a hot topic internationally. New investment in agritech is passing out clean tech and fintech.

“Working together and working smarter we can make better use of limited resources, achieve higher standards, guarantee food chain traceability and achieve better outcomes for the farmer, the industry, the consumer and those regulating the industry,” Foley said.
 Source
Smart agriculture image via Shutterstock

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Drought costs California agriculture $1.84B and 10,100 jobs in 2015

 

The drought is tightening its grip on California agriculture, squeezing about 30 percent more workers and cropland out of production than in 2014, according to the latest drought impact report by the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

In 2015, the state’s agricultural economy will lose about $1.84 billion and 10,100 seasonal jobs because of the drought, the report estimated, with the Central Valley hardest hit.

The analysis also forecasts how the industry will fare if the drought persists through 2017.

Currently, the industry overall remains robust. The agricultural economy continues to grow in this fourth year of severe drought, thanks mostly to the state’s vast but declining reserves of groundwater, which will offset about 70 percent of the surface water shortage this year, the researchers said.

California is the world’s richest food-producing region. Continued strong global demand and prices for many of its fruits, nuts and vegetables has helped sustain the farm economy along with intrastate water transfers and shifts in growing locations.

“We’re getting by remarkably well this year — much better than many had predicted — but it’s not a free lunch,” said lead author Richard Howitt, a UC Davis professor emeritus of agricultural and resource economics.

The heavy reliance on groundwater comes at ever-increasing energy costs as farmers pump deeper and drill more wells. Some of the heavy pumping is in basins already in severe overdraft — where groundwater use greatly exceeds replenishment of aquifers — inviting further land subsidence, water quality problems and diminishing reserves needed for future droughts.

Further, several small rural communities continue to suffer from high unemployment and drying up of domestic wells because of the drought, particularly in the Tulare Basin.

“If a drought of this intensity persists beyond 2015, California’s agricultural production and employment will continue to erode,” said co-author Josue Medellin-Azuara, a water economist with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

The UC Davis team used computer models and the latest estimates of surface water availability from state and federal water projects and local water districts. They forecast several drought-related impacts in the state’s major agricultural regions for the current growing season, including:

• The direct costs of drought to agriculture will be $1.84 billion for 2015. The total impact to all economic sectors is an estimated $2.74 billion, compared with $2.2 billion in 2014. The state’s farmers and ranchers currently receive more than $46 billion annually in gross revenues, a small fraction of California’s $1.9 trillion-a-year economy.

• The loss of about 10,100 seasonal jobs directly related to farm production, compared with the researchers’ 2014 drought estimate of 7,500 jobs. When considering the spillover effects of the farm losses on all other economic sectors, the employment impact of the 2015 drought more than doubles to 21,000 lost jobs.

• Surface water shortages will reach nearly 8.7 million acre-feet, which will be offset mostly by increased groundwater pumping of 6 million acre-feet.

• Net water shortages of 2.7 million acre-feet will cause roughly 542,000 acres to be idled — 114,000 more acres than the researchers’ 2014 drought estimate. Most idled land is in the Tulare Basin.

• The effects of continued drought through 2017 (assuming continued 2014 water supplies) will likely be 6 percent worse than in 2015, with the net water shortage increasing to 2.9 million acre-feet a year. Gradual decline in groundwater pumping capacity and water elevations will add to the incremental costs of a prolonged drought.

The scientists noted that new state groundwater laws requiring local agencies to attain sustainable yields could eventually reverse the depletion of underground reserves.

“The transition will cause some increased fallowing of cropland or longer crop rotations but will help preserve California’s ability to support more profitable permanent and vegetable crops during drought,” said co-author Jay Lund, director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

The report was primarily funded by the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Other authors on the report include Daniel Sumner, a UC Davis professor of agricultural and resource economics and director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, and Duncan MacEwan of the ERA Economics consulting firm in Davis.

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Jamaica ; Towards sustainable and profitable agriculture

  

 

AGRICULTURE minister, Mr Derrick Kellier, tells us that there is a huge unsatisfied demand for Jamaica's farm produce in the United States.
"There are some 52 items on the pre-clearance list for the import of agricultural produce into the United States, and we are currently only supplying less than a quarter of the items on the list," Mr Kellier said at a buyers' mission forum in Kingston earlier this week.
The minister identified yams dasheens, sweet potatoes, peppers, herbs, spices and neutraceuticals among produce with "serious potential for export".
For those Jamaicans who have been around for a while, there may well be a strong sense of déjà vu. In fact they have been hearing such stories from government and official sources for decades.

It's not for nothing that Jamaica is sometimes referred to as a land of samples. Despite the long-standing demand, especially in North America and Britain, for produce such as named above, the country -- for all sorts of reasons -- has never come close to satisfying those markets.

Obviously, Jamaica has built-in limitations because of small size. With the best will in the world, small mountainous Jamaica will not be able to compete with larger countries in Central and South America, for example, in terms of mass production.
However, there is the strong perception -- not only among the large and thriving Jamaican diaspora -- that produce grown here is superior in taste, texture, and quality to that originating elsewhere.
The reasons may well be related to peculiar climatic conditions -- such as are said to be the case for coffee grown in the Blue Mountains and ginger in the central highlands.
Whatever the reasons, that strong and abiding perception that the Jamaican product is superior, provides tremendous opportunities for niche marketing using the national brand.
None of what has been said here is new. It's just that, despite all the talk down the years, concrete action has proven slow and difficult.
And yet this newspaper believes the country is now at a stage for meaningful takeoff in agriculture.
We refer particularly to the development of irrigated agricultural parks (agro parks), which evidence suggest have been mostly successful.
Nine agro parks developed so far are said to have contributed massively to easing the effects of last year's horrendous drought as well as the 2015 repeat of that experience.
Despite the intense drought, Jamaica's food import bill for 2014 is said to have decreased by US$43.6, partly as a result of agro-park production.
We are assured by Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips -- whose meticulous approach to Jamaica's economic reconstruction has attracted admiration -- that 21 agro parks are to be established over the next three years.
Irrigation, which is key to well-planned agriculture, has made the real difference for the agro parks. We are aware that irrigation projects are very costly and there are environmental considerations which must be taken on board.
This newspaper believes, though, that with rigorous planning and implementation over the next few years, the agro-park model will not only assist the country's ongoing drive to cut imported food, it will go a far way in meeting that potentially highly profitable overseas demand.
Of course, there must also be the value-added projects as production surges -- involving post-harvesting storage and processing -- in the push towards genuine agro-industrial economy. But, let's go one step at a time.

 Source Jamaica Observer

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The Myth of Thriving Belarusian Agriculture

Agriculture was the fastest growing branch of the Belarusian economy in the first half of 2015. Many in Russia and other post-Soviet countries consider Belarus to be a model when it comes to maintaining a viable agricultural sector.

But in reality, the Belarusian government spends more on agriculture than the sector’s value added. Despite substantial subsidies many Belarusian foodstuffs cost more than European equivalents, including Polish cheese, Dutch meat, and Spanish tomatoes.

Agriculture plays a significant role in Belarusian state ideology. Almost every television news report in Belarus contains at least one reference to the agriculture sector, such as the recent story on Lukashenka teaching French actor Gerard Depardieu how to mow with a scythe.

In fact, however, Belarusian agriculture is the least effective sector of the economy. It still resembles the USSR era. Soviet-style collective farms still dominate the market and can barely operate without state subsidies.

The Least Reformed Economic Sector​

The share of agriculture, hunting, and forestry in the economy has been diminishing over the last 25 years – from 23 per cent of GDP in 1990 to 7 per cent in 2013, according to the National Statistical Committee. With over 320,000 Belarusians employed in the sector last year, agriculture still accounts for quite a significant part of the economy. By contrast, in Poland the share of the agriculture sector is twice as small.

Private farmers contribute less than two per cent to the total agricultural output

Salaries in agriculture remain among the lowest in the country, and hence the sector suffers from severe labour shortages. Currently, agriculture sector wages are a third of the average national salary (around $300 per month). However, earnings in this sector rose faster than the average in 2011-2013.

Agriculture remains the least transformed sector of the Belarusian economy. Private farmers, the basis of agriculture in any market-oriented economy, contribute less than two per cent to the total agricultural output. Together with production from household plots, i.e. individual gardening for one's own needs, they constitute less than a quarter of the total agricultural output. Yet state-owned collective organizations or collective organisations with significant state involvement make up the vast majority of the rest.

Agriculture has become a very export-oriented branch of the Belarusian economy, with a positive trade balance. In 2014 it accounted for $5.6bn or 15.5 per cent of total exports. The only problem is that virtually all these exports, particularly dairy and meat products, go to Russia.

Ineffective State-Owned Collective Farms

Almost all state-owned collective farms would immediately go bankrupt without state support. Only 10 per cent of agricultural firms could operate profitably without public aid, according to a study published in December 2013 by the Ministry of Economy.

 The absence of reforms turned agriculture into a very ineffective sector of the economy.

Paradoxically, the Belarusian government uses more resources on agriculture than it produces. In recent years subsidies for the agriculture sector oscillated between 9 and 12 per cent of GDP, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. At the same time agriculture’s contribution to GDP is less than 9 per cent.

On the other hand, with hardly any financial aid from the state private farmers have proved themselves to be more productive than generously subsidised state-owned entities. Over the last 15 years private farmers have increased production by 16 per cent annually, i.e. 10 percentage points faster than the state-owned collective farms. This financial performance also boosts arguments in favour of private ownership.

Occasionally Belarusian officials discuss privatisation of agricultural enterprises. In November 2014, Deputy Prime Minister Michal Rusy stated that nearly 30 per cent of agricultural enterprises were insolvent and said that perhaps it was time to sell them. In mid-July this year the head of Hrodna region, Uladzimir Kraucou, confessed that a third of the 150 agricultural organisations in the region cannot pay off their debts. The local authorities have considered their privatisation or at least reorganisation and have even received business proposals from investors to this end.

Commitments To Decrease Financing For Agriculture​

If Belarus were to join the WTO, it would have to cut significantly its financial support to agriculture. Without the prior liberalisation and privatisation of the agricultural sector, this will cause the whole sector to collapse. On the other hand, Belarus has already begun decreasing financing for the sector, and in 2016 subsidies should not exceed 10 per cent of GDP, due to Belarus’ commitment to the Eurasian Economic Union.

Improvement of the business environment can be a successful substitute for the huge financial injections into agriculture. Making it easier to do business and providing equal treatment for all business entities may encourage Belarusian private and foreign capital to replace the ineffective companies or force them to become more effective.

For instance, during the last economic liberalisation in 2007-2010 one of the world's biggest brewing companies, Heineken, entered the Belarusian market. The company has taken a large chunk of the brewing industry, and by doing so has invested in cooperation with many Belarusian agricultural enterprises.​

Private Farming Remains The Only Solution

Lukashenka’s policies have hindered the development of the private sector, particularly in agriculture. For instance, Belarus now has around 20 per cent fewer individual farmers compared to 1994 when Lukashenka was first elected as president. Officials have been discriminating against private farmers, sending inspections to their premises more frequently and subsidising predominantly the state-owned collective organisations.

For the last 25 years the authorities have tried to avoid reforming the sector. The absence of private ownership of land remains the real obstacle for the sector’s growth. The agricultural land market hardly exists. Less than one per cent of Belarus’ land areas is under the private ownership of natural persons who are citizens of Belarus. The experience of other post-socialist countries, both in Eastern Europe and in East Asia, shows that the transfer of land ownership boosts the profitability of agricultural activities.

The ability of the Belarusian authorities to maintain a viable agricultural sector remains only a myth propagated in Russia and some other countries. In fact, Belarusian agriculture survives only thanks to gigantic state subsidies. Instead of supporting the systematically unprofitable entities, the government should distribute the financial resources more equally, creating an equal market environment for both collective organisations and private farmers.

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