Nigeria is endowed with abundant resources (agricultural resources inclusive) yet the agricultural sector has suffered neglect, and this can be traced to a decline that began with the advent of petroleum boom in the early 1970s.
This distortion produced adverse effects on our agricultural products production level. Before now, government used to pay farmers low prices on food for the domestic market in order to satisfy urban demands for cheap basic food products. This policy made agricultural work unattractive, and as food production could not keep pace with its increasing population, Nigeria began to import food. It has also lost its status as a net exporter of such cash crops as cocoa, palm oil, and groundnuts.
In past years, the federal government has consistently created policies to revive the agricultural sector but the poor implementation of these policies and programme designs as become a distress factor for the growth and development of the Nigerian agricultural sector. For instance, the trend in the share of agriculture in the GDP shows a substantial variation and long-term decline from 60% in the early 1960s through 48.8% in the 1970s and 22.2% in the 1980s.
However, the Nigerian economy has continued to grow rapidly in recent years despite the persistent structural weaknesses, with growth concentrated primarily in trade, agriculture, and telecommunications. In 2013 Nigeria’s agricultural sector contributed an estimated 22 percent of GDP, the oil and gas sector 14 percent, the telecom sector 9 percent, and the manufacturing sector 7%. Overall, services including telecommunications, finance, and construction, contributed 52 percent of our GDP.
The agricultural sector in Nigeria sustains over 80 percent of rural households; and the government is working to expand private agro-businesses access to finance, relieve farm-to-market transport infrastructure constraints, and increase the use of irrigation and improved seed varieties.
A strong and efficient agricultural sector would enable NIGERIA to feed its growing population, generate employment, earn foreign exchange and provide raw materials for industries. The agricultural sector has a multiplier effect on any nation’s socio-economic and industrial fabric because of the multi-functional nature of agriculture. At such, the agricultural sector has the potential to be the industrial and economic springboard from which Nigeria’s development can take off. Largely because it’s primary role is to provide food and manpower to the expanding industrial economy. Indeed, more often than not, agricultural activities are usually concentrated in the less-developed rural areas where there is a critical need for rural transformation, redistribution, poverty alleviation and socio-economic development.
In recent years, Nigeria’s food import bill declined from N1.1 trillion in 2009 to N634 billion in 2013 and continues to decline; the number of seed companies in Nigeria has increased from 11 to 134 within the past three years, allowing farmers to be reached with high quality seeds. The volume of seeds available to farmers has increased from 4,252Metric tons in 2011 to over 149,484metric tonnes today; and the number of integrated rice mills has increased to 24 today.
The profitability of any nation’s resource depends on the importance attached to it. According to Mr Adesina (Ex – Agriculture minister), “the change we need as a nation is a shift in mindset. Agriculture is been looked at as a developmental activity – A social responsibility to develop the rural areas. Wrong! Agriculture is a business. Seed production is a business; fertilizer production is a business, the storage facility as well as the logistics and transport.”
Nigeria has great potential to become the food basket of the West African Sub-region given that she is endowed with huge expanse of arable land, beneficial climate, abundant streams, lakes, forest and grassland, as well as large, active population that can sustain a highly productive agriculture system.
The future of Nigeria lies in harnessing her resources, and agriculture is paramount. With agriculture, we can stop hunger within and outside of our borders, provide food for neighboring countries, engage our youths with meaningful employment opportunities, make money and save for investment purpose. There is no limit to the benefits agriculture can give.
Credit:
Daily Independent Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics,
nationsencyclopedia.com, eujournal.org, ajol.info, forbes.com, US Department of
States
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