I have always been a consistent advocate of Nigeria’s return to agricultural production in a big way. This is because agriculture is the future of Nigeria. We have a population of almost 20 million which is projected to exceed the population of the United States of America in another 20 years or so. We must be able to feed ourselves and be self sufficient in food production and also produce for export. There is no way we can feed our large population except we go back to massive agricultural production.
Recall that in the 1960s, before the ascendancy of oil in the Nigerian economy, Nigeria was seen as one of the most promising agricultural producers in the world. From 1950s up to 1968, Nigeria relied on the exportation of agricultural products as its main foreign exchange source. Nigeria was number one globally in palm oil exports, far ahead of Malaysia and Indonesia. Nigeria was also a major exporter of groundnuts, exporting about 47 per cent of all groundnuts and was well ahead of the US and Argentina.
Time was when Nigeria was a major producer of cocoa. That was in the 1960s and it was third, coming after Brazil and Ghana accounted for about 20 percent of global production of the cocoa. Over time, cocoa production declined rapidly and today, Ivory Coast which was formerly far behind Nigeria now leads the world in cocoa production.
Recall also that Nigeria was once a major producer of tomato accounting for about 65 percent of tomatoes in West Africa. Today, Nigeria is one of the largest importers of tomato paste and still a major producer of tomato.
It is indeed, regrettable that Nigeria, which was once seen across the world as an agricultural powerhouse is today seen as an oil producing country. the ascendancy of oil in the oil in the early 1970s saw the death of agriculture as young men and women trooped to the cities in search of white collar jobs so as to enjoy the fruits of oil boom which the oil boom has brought to the young Nigerian nation.
Our former Minister for Agriculture, now the President of Africa Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi
Adesina, is one man who is very passionate about
agricultural development in the country.
He usually feels terribly bad and full of regret each time he discusses Nigeria’s deteriorating agriculture sector. “Nigeria is known for nothing else than oil, and it is so sad, because we never used to have oil – all we used to have was agriculture,” he says. You can see why he is reorienting AfDB to focus more on agricultural development across
Africa.
Nigeria’s oil has come at the detriment of the agriculture sector, he claims, “and that is why we had a rising poverty situation. We were having growth but without robust growth able to impact millions of people because it is not connecting to
agriculture.”
Recall the upsurge in the price of crude oil from 1999. Nigeria’s economic statistics were also so inexplicably on the uptick. The country was posting high growth figures so much so that it made it into Goldman Sachs’ “Next 11” emerging markets group. Yet, beneath these rising growth figures absolute poverty was rising. Today, about 130 million or 60.9 percent or more of Nigerians are living on less than a $1.25 a day. That is one of the prices that we are paying for our inability to plan and implement it in a sustainable way and, in particular, our neglect of agriculture.
Going forward, we must have a mindset change. Increased agricultural production cannot take place significantly if we do not see agriculture as a business. Henceforth, we must see activities such as seed multiplication, fertilizer
procurement, tilling the land, planting of seeds, application of herbicides, application of fertilizers, water application, harvesting, storage, processing and marketing of the farm proceeds as businesses to be taken seriously.
Having agreed that agriculture is the future of Nigeria, we must also agree that it is only the youths that can take us to the Promised Land in agriculture. The older generations of Nigerians are fatigued with peasant farming using their hoes and cutlasses as the implements for peasant agriculture. If the youths are to be involved in
agriculture, then we must agree that we need modern mechanized agriculture,
not the peasant farming that our parents
did in their time. We need to do modern agriculture that is productive, mechanized, and competitive and which can make us a global player within the next few
years.
In our return to agriculture, every level of government must be involved. In doing this, we must put politics aside and all state governments must be involved. Extension workers (services) must return to teach farmers new methods of commercial farming. It is a good thing that today; with modern mechanized farming we can produce about 20 tonnes of maize from one hectare of land.
Also, it used to be normal many years ago if a cow produced seven litres of milk per day. Today, with modern agriculture, a cow can produce between 250 and 300 litres of milk per day. In other words, if we give priority to agriculture and governments at all levels fund agriculture; we can change the current unimpressive narrative on agriculture.
The return of extension services will attract youths into mechanized agriculture and they will be taught how to use the best in research to get higher and improved yields in their farms. If possible, farm settlements with modern amenities such as good roads, electricity, potable water, internet and health facilities, should be introduced in the states in the South West, South- south and South East zones. The farm settlements will attract youths to farming too. But, the land and the tractors must be made available by government so that the farmers can hire them.
Funding is important to agriculture, particularly mechanized agriculture. The federal and state governments must put heads together to create multiple sources of funding strictly for agriculture. Loans to agriculture must bear single digit interest rates. Anything more than single digit interest cannot work. CBN’s Anchor Borrowers’ Scheme is a good example. More of such funding sources are needed if increased agricultural production is to happen in the country.
