The prevailing depreciation of the Naira, refusal of
the United States – Nigeria’s major oil importer to patronize the
country and the discovery of oil by many countries as well as
alternative energy sources are already hurting Nigeria’s finances.
These uprisings have given additional impetus to the Federal Government’s focus on increasing non-oil revenues. The agricultural sector, according to the experts, has the largest potential to diversify the country’s economy, create jobs, ensure food security and expand foreign exchange earnings.
An economist and Managing Director of CMC group, Eniola Olagbe commented that the continuous decline of the international oil prices will affect Nigeria’s fiscal management and there have been strings of responses from major stakeholders, including leading firms and major contributors to the country’s GDP.
According to him, there has been an important shift in government policy, towards emphasizing agricultural transformation from subsistence to agribusiness in the country. “Although, a larger percent of African youths still believe Agriculture is a primitive vocation meant for the uneducated rural peasant engulfed in a vicious cycle of poverty and not what a young person should practice, it is gradually changing,” he said while adding that the number of youths in the agricultural sector is increasing in comparison to the past, when youths shied away from agriculture because of the drudgery.
Investing in agriculture for the future of Nigeria and its young people
“Nigeria’s population is expected to be more than double its current number by 2050, the future of the country is in the hands of the Nigerian youths and without a vibrant agricultural sector, the country’s future might not be viable”. These were the words of the President of All Farmers Association, Lagos chapter, Mr. Femi Oke.
“You cannot eat oil – at least not crude oil. Oil money has not transformed Nigerian agriculture over the last 30 years. It has not fed hungry people or developed rural areas. Nigeria is a developing country and it will remain a developing country unless Nigerians act to seize the opportunities at hand. These opportunities are existing in agriculture” he said.
He emphasized on the need for Nigeria to learn from England, India and Vietnam, saying that from 18th century England to 20th century India to Vietnam today, agriculture has proven that it can drive economic growth. The cassava farmer explained that GDP growth generated by agriculture has been shown to be at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors.
Foreign multinationals know the strength of Nigeria’s purchasing power and Africa at large. Guinness, for example, generates 13 per cent of its net revenues from Africa. Today, not only raw primary products but also quality, value-added products are in demand from Nigeria and this means new opportunities for the agro-industrial sector.
Speaking on agriculture and youths in Nigeria, an agro-entrepreneur, Alaba Kehinde said agriculture employs around two-thirds of the workforce, including 90 per cent of the rural population. Alaba stressed that government needs to act fast as multinational companies are already downsizing and increasing the unemployment rate the country.
“Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, for instance, is one of many multinational companies that have begun a contraction plan so as not to be caught napping if the decelerating trajectory continues. Already close to 5000 of the Company’s 18,000 staff strength are said to have been laid off,” he said.
President, Jonathan Trust Foundation (JTF), Mr. Abiodun Dada once stressed the need to change the primary assignment of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to farming, for the country to create more jobs.
Nigerians should expect to see major improvement in the Agricultural and Mining Sectors of the economy. Our past was Agriculture and Mining and so is the future of this country. These two sectors are capable of employing millions of Nigerians and also generating foreign earnings for the government through export, “NYSC members posted to government and private establishments are mostly under-utilized and government should use them to develop our agricultural sector. If an NYSC Agricultural Scheme is created and the state government allocates hundreds of hectares of land to the scheme in their various Local Government Councils for farming where every corps member will carry out their national primary assignment, it will speedily increase the country’s food production,” he added.
Financial linkages
Finance is the critical catalyst to growth and banks in Nigeria are gradually partnering to exploit the opportunities inherent in agriculture – which in part follows the reforms implemented by Dr. Adesina’s administration with the support of the Presidency and are currently investing in the sector.
While banks have often had a high perceived risk of lending to agriculture, the terms can be competitive if the sector functions well. Adesina worked directly with the Managing Directors and Chief Risk Officers of Nigeria’s banks in order to tackle what he saw as a misperception of risk, at least if the sector’s flaws – including inefficiencies and corruption, could be cleaned up.
The best performing stocks in the Nigerian Stock Exchange are now not banks, but agricultural companies. Crucially, it is an institutional reform rather than simply heavier public spending.
Last year, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development developed a facility with the Central Bank of Nigeria, helped by donor assistance from the UK, German and US development agencies called NIRSAL – an agribusiness initiative that provides risk management, financing, trading, and strategic solutions.
The $50m facility, which leverages $3.5bn, reduces the risk of agricultural lending by providing credit risk guarantees and brokerage services to buyers and sellers of agricultural commodities, including structured buyer forums. It also, selectively, buys on its own account to bring stability to markets. In addition, NIRSAL offers advice designed to connect suppliers with downstream buyers.
Strategy for agriculture booming economy
Rejuvenating agriculture for the future of Nigeria should start with agricultural research and extension services. In China, one person was lifted out of poverty for every 109 USD spent on agricultural research. In Uganda, the impact of research was even more dramatic, with one person lifted from poverty for every 16 USD spent on research.
A separate report by the CGIAR indicates that 1 USD spent on agricultural research produces 9 USD worth of added food in developing countries.
To rejuvenate agriculture in Nigeria, the government must harness the best pro-poor agricultural research, rebuild and strengthen national research institutions. Sometimes, the best way to grow food in an arid climate is to go back to basics. Government needs to build a rock dam to stabilize soil and collect water runoff, or construct cisterns to collect rain water.
However, the most important action is the need to “grow” future generations of farmers. For that to happen, the needs and desires of our young people must be considered. When rural communities do not offer attractive economic opportunities, young people are forced to leave their homes in search of work and their villages start to die, but when they can make a good living at home, their energy and creativity can be channeled into reviving their community.
Presently, the country needs young people to be the farmers and food processors of tomorrow, not just to feed themselves and their villages, but to grow the food to feed cities. Investing in the rural youths is a simple but elegant solution to some of the country’s most pressing problems. It helps to eliminate poverty and hunger, curtails migration to cities and other countries, and lays a solid foundation for national, regional and global security.
In Nigeria, there are 230 kilometers of paved road per million people, compared with just over one thousand kilometers in India and nearly 21 thousand kilometers of paved road per million people in the United States. In addition to roads, farmers need processing and storage facilities so that they can safely process and store their produce until they can get it to market, instead of watching it waste on the farm. Cassava, for example, has a water content of 70 percent, making it vulnerable to spoilage and making it bulky and expensive to transport. Good processing is clearly essential for fresh cassava. Turning it into animal feed, flour, industrial starch, ethanol and other products increases potential markets for farmers, while also increasing cassava’s shelf life and reducing the cost of transportation.
The present administration has set the pace and is on the right track to driving massive development of the sector as well as youth involvement, that notwithstanding, increased effort must be employed to ensure that there is sufficient investment in rural infrastructure, including roads, electrification and storage facilities.
Private sector involvement ranging from domestic companies to large international companies and from small and medium enterprises to small famers and their organizations is critical in allowing agriculture to contribute to food and nutrition security.
Source: http://agronigeria.com.ng/experts-predict-agriculture-as-nigerias-economic-bolster/
These uprisings have given additional impetus to the Federal Government’s focus on increasing non-oil revenues. The agricultural sector, according to the experts, has the largest potential to diversify the country’s economy, create jobs, ensure food security and expand foreign exchange earnings.
An economist and Managing Director of CMC group, Eniola Olagbe commented that the continuous decline of the international oil prices will affect Nigeria’s fiscal management and there have been strings of responses from major stakeholders, including leading firms and major contributors to the country’s GDP.
According to him, there has been an important shift in government policy, towards emphasizing agricultural transformation from subsistence to agribusiness in the country. “Although, a larger percent of African youths still believe Agriculture is a primitive vocation meant for the uneducated rural peasant engulfed in a vicious cycle of poverty and not what a young person should practice, it is gradually changing,” he said while adding that the number of youths in the agricultural sector is increasing in comparison to the past, when youths shied away from agriculture because of the drudgery.
Investing in agriculture for the future of Nigeria and its young people
“Nigeria’s population is expected to be more than double its current number by 2050, the future of the country is in the hands of the Nigerian youths and without a vibrant agricultural sector, the country’s future might not be viable”. These were the words of the President of All Farmers Association, Lagos chapter, Mr. Femi Oke.
“You cannot eat oil – at least not crude oil. Oil money has not transformed Nigerian agriculture over the last 30 years. It has not fed hungry people or developed rural areas. Nigeria is a developing country and it will remain a developing country unless Nigerians act to seize the opportunities at hand. These opportunities are existing in agriculture” he said.
He emphasized on the need for Nigeria to learn from England, India and Vietnam, saying that from 18th century England to 20th century India to Vietnam today, agriculture has proven that it can drive economic growth. The cassava farmer explained that GDP growth generated by agriculture has been shown to be at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors.
Foreign multinationals know the strength of Nigeria’s purchasing power and Africa at large. Guinness, for example, generates 13 per cent of its net revenues from Africa. Today, not only raw primary products but also quality, value-added products are in demand from Nigeria and this means new opportunities for the agro-industrial sector.
Speaking on agriculture and youths in Nigeria, an agro-entrepreneur, Alaba Kehinde said agriculture employs around two-thirds of the workforce, including 90 per cent of the rural population. Alaba stressed that government needs to act fast as multinational companies are already downsizing and increasing the unemployment rate the country.
“Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, for instance, is one of many multinational companies that have begun a contraction plan so as not to be caught napping if the decelerating trajectory continues. Already close to 5000 of the Company’s 18,000 staff strength are said to have been laid off,” he said.
President, Jonathan Trust Foundation (JTF), Mr. Abiodun Dada once stressed the need to change the primary assignment of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to farming, for the country to create more jobs.
Nigerians should expect to see major improvement in the Agricultural and Mining Sectors of the economy. Our past was Agriculture and Mining and so is the future of this country. These two sectors are capable of employing millions of Nigerians and also generating foreign earnings for the government through export, “NYSC members posted to government and private establishments are mostly under-utilized and government should use them to develop our agricultural sector. If an NYSC Agricultural Scheme is created and the state government allocates hundreds of hectares of land to the scheme in their various Local Government Councils for farming where every corps member will carry out their national primary assignment, it will speedily increase the country’s food production,” he added.
Financial linkages
Finance is the critical catalyst to growth and banks in Nigeria are gradually partnering to exploit the opportunities inherent in agriculture – which in part follows the reforms implemented by Dr. Adesina’s administration with the support of the Presidency and are currently investing in the sector.
While banks have often had a high perceived risk of lending to agriculture, the terms can be competitive if the sector functions well. Adesina worked directly with the Managing Directors and Chief Risk Officers of Nigeria’s banks in order to tackle what he saw as a misperception of risk, at least if the sector’s flaws – including inefficiencies and corruption, could be cleaned up.
The best performing stocks in the Nigerian Stock Exchange are now not banks, but agricultural companies. Crucially, it is an institutional reform rather than simply heavier public spending.
Last year, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development developed a facility with the Central Bank of Nigeria, helped by donor assistance from the UK, German and US development agencies called NIRSAL – an agribusiness initiative that provides risk management, financing, trading, and strategic solutions.
The $50m facility, which leverages $3.5bn, reduces the risk of agricultural lending by providing credit risk guarantees and brokerage services to buyers and sellers of agricultural commodities, including structured buyer forums. It also, selectively, buys on its own account to bring stability to markets. In addition, NIRSAL offers advice designed to connect suppliers with downstream buyers.
Strategy for agriculture booming economy
Rejuvenating agriculture for the future of Nigeria should start with agricultural research and extension services. In China, one person was lifted out of poverty for every 109 USD spent on agricultural research. In Uganda, the impact of research was even more dramatic, with one person lifted from poverty for every 16 USD spent on research.
A separate report by the CGIAR indicates that 1 USD spent on agricultural research produces 9 USD worth of added food in developing countries.
To rejuvenate agriculture in Nigeria, the government must harness the best pro-poor agricultural research, rebuild and strengthen national research institutions. Sometimes, the best way to grow food in an arid climate is to go back to basics. Government needs to build a rock dam to stabilize soil and collect water runoff, or construct cisterns to collect rain water.
However, the most important action is the need to “grow” future generations of farmers. For that to happen, the needs and desires of our young people must be considered. When rural communities do not offer attractive economic opportunities, young people are forced to leave their homes in search of work and their villages start to die, but when they can make a good living at home, their energy and creativity can be channeled into reviving their community.
Presently, the country needs young people to be the farmers and food processors of tomorrow, not just to feed themselves and their villages, but to grow the food to feed cities. Investing in the rural youths is a simple but elegant solution to some of the country’s most pressing problems. It helps to eliminate poverty and hunger, curtails migration to cities and other countries, and lays a solid foundation for national, regional and global security.
In Nigeria, there are 230 kilometers of paved road per million people, compared with just over one thousand kilometers in India and nearly 21 thousand kilometers of paved road per million people in the United States. In addition to roads, farmers need processing and storage facilities so that they can safely process and store their produce until they can get it to market, instead of watching it waste on the farm. Cassava, for example, has a water content of 70 percent, making it vulnerable to spoilage and making it bulky and expensive to transport. Good processing is clearly essential for fresh cassava. Turning it into animal feed, flour, industrial starch, ethanol and other products increases potential markets for farmers, while also increasing cassava’s shelf life and reducing the cost of transportation.
The present administration has set the pace and is on the right track to driving massive development of the sector as well as youth involvement, that notwithstanding, increased effort must be employed to ensure that there is sufficient investment in rural infrastructure, including roads, electrification and storage facilities.
Private sector involvement ranging from domestic companies to large international companies and from small and medium enterprises to small famers and their organizations is critical in allowing agriculture to contribute to food and nutrition security.
Source: http://agronigeria.com.ng/experts-predict-agriculture-as-nigerias-economic-bolster/
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