THE Hadejia-Nguru wetlands of Nigeria are teeming with life. Hundreds of species of birds congregate in this northern part of Nigeria, some as permanent residents, others on their way to and from Europe and other parts of Africa. The area is also home to a large number of people 鈥� more than a million settled in towns and the semi-nomadic Fulani people who take their cattle to graze during the dry season. In April 1987, two conservation agencies, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP), signed an agreement with the federal government of Nigeria to create the Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands Conservation Project. The government of Nigeria, however, while doing its bit for conservation, had already drawn up policies that would encourage forms of agriculture that could destroy large parts of the region. Already, thousands of hectares of wetland have been cleared, levelled and planted with wheat.
The Hadejia-Nguru wetlands lie around the confluences of the Hadejia, Katagyum, Keffin Hausa and Burum Gana Rivers, 250 kilometres northeast of Kano City. The wetlands straddle three states, Kano, Borno and Bauchi. The flood plain covers some 350 000 hectares, almost half of which was liable to flood earlier this century. Successive droughts in the 1970s and 1980s, combined with dams and irrigation schemes upstream which draw off water from the rivers, have reduced the flooded area to about a third of its original size. Because large bodies of water persist for much of the year, the area is particularly attractive to many species of birds and waterfowl. As many as 376 species have been identified, including ospreys and white storks, white-fronted geese and European cranes. The wetlands are host to one of the largest breeding populations of knob-billed geese in Africa.
Regular flooding washes fresh supplies of nutrients onto the flood plain making it highly productive. Farmers produce surpluses of rice, maize, peppers and vegetables, which they sell in the local towns and as far off as Lagos, more than 1000 kilometres away. The extensive flooding also makes the area an important fishing centre: most farmers also fish for at least part of the year.
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All those involved in the project were well aware that they were not trying to protect an untouched wilderness. Patently, a scheme for a 鈥榝ortress鈥� reserve shutting out the human population would have been impossible both to establish and to operate. Instead, the founding agencies intended to manage the area in a way that would encourage and support sustainable technologies and techniques in agriculture, fisheries and cattle rearing. Their goal was to create an environment that would conserve this complex area and its wildlife, by advising, educating and demonstrating conservation techniques to the local people. But Nigeria鈥檚 economic and agricultural needs have undermined even these well-laid plans.
In May 1986, President Ibrahim Babangida announced a ban on all imports of wheat to Nigeria. The country had begun to import large amounts of wheat in the early 1970s, during the oil boom, when the populations of the cities swelled, creating a demand for cheap fast food. Nigeria could not satisfy the demand from its own agriculture. In the early 1980s, oil prices fell and Nigeria was left spending large amounts of scarce foreign currency on ever-increasing imports of food, particularly wheat. The climate of southern Nigeria is unsuitable for wheat. The only place where it will grow is the north, and even there the crop must be irrigated in the dry season. Nevertheless, Nigeria committed itself to substituting wheat imports with home-grown wheat with the help of large-scale irrigation schemes that were built in the 1970s. Despite the huge cost of these schemes, none of them ever performed well enough to reach their wheat production targets.
Because large-scale irrigation failed to live up to expectations and did little to accelerate overall development of rural areas, the federal government began to promote small-scale irrigation in the northern states through Agricultural Development Projects, sponsored by the World Bank. These projects supply seed to grow vegetables and staple grains but they also provide wheat seed, fertiliser and small, petrol-driven irrigation pumps. In Kano State, farmers who cultivate wheat benefit from a 50 per cent subsidy on pumps, seed, fertiliser and any other service or input for wheat. Because the price for wheat rose dramatically after the ban on imported wheat, there was no shortage of applicants for the subsidised wheat package offered by the ADPs. By the 1988-89 growing season in Kano State alone the wheat programme had registered some 25 000 farmers who were growing wheat on 30 000 hectares.
The publicity surrounding the government鈥檚 attempts to stimulate home production of wheat, the large subsidies and the high price of wheat soon began to attract 鈥榞entlemen farmers鈥�. Middle and high-ranking army officers, civil servants and businessmen discovered that there are large profits to be made from wheat. While the small-holders, the official target of the development projects, grow wheat on small plots, perhaps 1 or 2 hectares, the 鈥榚lite鈥� farmers are cultivating anything between 50 and 300 hectares. Many are carving their plots from the natural acacia scrubland of northern Nigeria. They hire bulldozers and graders to remove the original vegetation and level out the land. Within a couple of weeks, the scrubland is transformed into prairie-style wheat fields. Unfortunately, the clearances do not stop there. The large-scale removal of acacia scrubland tends to act as a bridgehead for a second wave of farmers who clear smaller areas around the edge of the 鈥榩rairies鈥�.
In the space of one growing season, in 1988 and 1989, elite farmers cleared around 1750 hectares within the boundaries of the Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands Conservation Project. Secondary clearances took an additional 750 hectares, and small farmers cleared plots amounting to 1000 hectares. Altogether, in that season, at least 3500 hectares of acacia scrubland 鈥� almost 20 per cent of the scrub in the project area 鈥� was levelled to grow wheat. A year later, the clearances seem to have doubled, and there is no sign of a slackening off.
The combination of the development programmes, the government鈥檚 determination to increase wheat production and the ease with which some sections of the population gain access to relatively large tracts of land, has resulted in a land scramble in the northern states of Nigeria. The Hadejia-Nguru conservation area, with its good supply of water through the dry season, is a prime target for would-be wheat growers. But the damage is not confined to Kano; both Katsina and Sokoto are experiencing an influx of gentlemen farmers.
The wheat boom has serious implications not just for agriculture but also for the local economy and rural communities. One victim is the production of traditional grains, partly because farmers are not allowed to plant sorghum as a rainy season crop on land scheduled for wheat in the dry season. More intensive agriculture in the region will also lower the fertility of the soil and reduce yields of millet and sorghum. In the past three years, farmers and pastoralists have come into conflict over access to areas that previously were fit only for grazing. With the introduction of pumps and the high price of wheat, these areas have become highly desirable as wheat fields in the dry season. Since 1986, farmers and graziers have clashed violently at several places within the conservation area. These problems pale into insignificance, however, when compared with the damage such unregulated cultivation of wheat will do to the ecology and the soil in the region.
The soils in the Hadejia-Nguru area are a complex pattern of light, sandy iron or salt-rich soils, which are not particularly good for growing crops. These soils usually contain very little clay or organic carbon which makes them vulnerable to erosion by wind or water. Clearance of the natural vegetation and the levelling operations can have disastrous effects on the structure and fertility of such soils. Tests in Nigeria show that the loss of soil, which is negligible under natural conditions, can increase to as much as 21 tonnes per hectare after the land is cleared and cropped. The breakdown of the structure of soil under continuous cultivation leads to the loss of the finest particles, leaving a soil with grains all of a size, which is extremely prone to erosion.
All operations that transform scrubland to wheat fields reduce the fertility of the soil very quickly. Intensive cultivation of the light tropical soils found in much of northern Nigeria can lower the organic content of the soil by half. A loss of organic material damages the structure of the soil and leads to the loss of valuable nutrients. A wheat crop that yields 3 tonnes per hectare removes 90 kilograms of nitrogen, 44 kilograms of phosphates and 76 kilograms of potassium from the soil in a growing season. Runoff from the fields takes away a further 23 kilograms a hectare of sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium and almost 14 kilograms of nitrogen. With widespread shortages of chemical fertilisers in Nigeria, few farmers are able to maintain the fertility of their soil.
Northern Nigeria is likely to experience widespread problems of soil degradation within a few years. Those cleared areas within the Hadejia-Nguru Wetland Project will suffer particularly badly. Crop yields will spiral downwards within four or five years, at which stage the soil will be almost totally depleted of nutrients. The area may become a dust bowl, unable to support even the original vegetation.
In February 1989, the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Hadejia-Nguru project as president of the World Wide Fund for Nature. He saw the project鈥檚 headquarters and some of the best wetland habitats, and took time to watch waterfowl visiting the area. What he did not see was that less than 3 kilometres from the airstrip where he landed, more than 5 square kilometres of acacia scrubland had been stripped and planted with wheat.
Nigeria鈥檚 agricultural development projects were meant to give a much needed helping hand to smallholders in the country. But the people who are benefiting most from these schemes are a group of more powerful people who have the resources and influence to exploit the services the ADPs offer.
The Nigerian government is proud of its record in supporting nature conservation; but it is also proud of the phenomenal expansion of its home production of wheat. In the north of the country the two objectives are not compatible. The government鈥檚 policy for wheat has led to what amounts to almost slash-and-burn agriculture in one of the most marginal and vulnerable regions of the country. What the government should be encouraging is the improvement of traditional forms of cultivation of traditional staple grains. That would improve its home production of food and safeguard its reputation as a nation concerned about conservation.
Kevin Kimmage is a researcher in the department of geography at the University of Cambridge.
