In 2004, some displaced white farmers from Zimbabwe arrived in the agrarian communities in the Shonga district of Edu Local Government Area of Kwara State.
In 2004, some displaced white farmers from Zimbabwe arrived in agrarian communities in the Shonga district of Edu Local Government Area of Kwara State on the invitation of the state government. The governor of the state at the time, Bukola Saraki, said they were invited to revolutionise agricultural practice and enhance the government's agro-economy initiative.
Subsequently, the government apportioned 4,755 hectares of the land to local farmers in a buffer zone set some 500 metres away from each of the affected villages. "I only got about 100 tubers of yams and that was not up to half of a tractor trolley. As for the beans, I planted ten 'mudus' but harvested 16 in return."Jibrin Mohammed is a young farmer in Ndakansa, a village encircled by over 3,000 hectares of land appropriated for the White farmers.
However, the Acting Manager of Shonga Farms Holding Ltd, Ibrahim Kolawole, believes the farmers are being affected by improper land preparation and management. "This is significantly higher than the food inflation rate during the administrations of Muhammadu Buhari , Goodluck Jonathan , and Umaru Yar'Adua ," the data organisation stated.
However, in December 2023, Kwara ranked second with 41.33 per cent, leading Imo , while Kogi topped the list with 44.73 per cent. Each of the 13 farmers was allotted a thousand hectares of land, summing up to the 13,000 hectares acquired by the government using the Land Use Act of 1978. The land was, thereafter, jointly cleared by the foreign farmers and the Kwara State government for infrastructural development and advanced farming system.
The dairy farmers imported the Jersey breed of cattle from South Africa in 2008, Mohammed Kudu, a resident of Shonga who worked closely with the white farmers, said. The breed, he added, is heat-tolerant and more efficient in milk production. Although the initial white farmers have left Kwara, their impacts are however still being felt by local farmers who blamed the annual flooding affecting their farms on massive deforestation by the foreigners.
Local farmers like Rabiu Baba, who lives in Shonga town and farms on a piece of land near Dumagi, had to hasten their harvest to avoid losing it to floods. The floods did not spare residential houses. From Shonga town to Dumagi, Sanchitagi, Faigi, Ndakansa, Gumbagi and Gboro, PREMIUM TIMES observed the catastrophic effects of flooding on the villages.As hardship intensifies in the farming communities, PREMIUM TIMES gathered that there is an impending conflict between neighbouring villages over land ownership.
Local chiefs in the Shonga district have been able to stem the communal conflict before it degenerates into violence. However, officials of Shonga Farms Holdings Ltd explained that the government would renegotiate the lease with the new investors. In addition to the cash token given to some of the farmers, the government also distributed bicycles to them so that they could easily access the new farms situated 500 metres away from their villages.Many factors threatened the project, including a N1.7 billion loan that led to AMCON's seizure two years ago. Mr Kolawole, the acting general manager of Shonga Farms Holding Ltd, said the company has been offsetting the loan.
"We give them to local farmers to farm at no cost," Mr Kolawole said, adding the firm may soon start leasing out the land to offset land use charge debts it had incurred over time. He blamed the worsening environmental degradation on continued deforestation by the locals for domestic use, furniture making and charcoal business.
Mr Kolawole said the project would have been better if the necessary attention and support had been given.When PREMIUM TIMES visited the farms in March, our reporter observed that only Valentine Chickens was visibly running its business in the area. Although one cow, a Jersey breed, wandered around Farm 10, this was a massive drop-down compared to the over 300 cows that were imported.
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