As the country ushers in a new administration into office, Gilbert Ekugbe spotlights agric stakeholders’ expectations for the Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration to transform the nation’s agro sector
Hitting the ground running, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his inaugural speech stated his administration’s resolve to establish agricultural hubs throughout the nation to increase food production while also prioritising efforts in value-added processing of agricultural commodities.
Tinubu assured that through these actions, food shall be made more abundant yet less costly as farmers would earn more while the average Nigerian pays less for food products.
Stakeholders in the agricultural industry had at different fora stated the need to develop the nation’s agricultural value chain to boost food production as well as create wealth and job opportunities for the nation’s teeming unemployed youths.
According to Tinubu, rural incomes shall be secured by commodity exchange boards guaranteeing minimal prices for certain crops and animal products, maintaining that a nationwide programme for storage and other facilities to reduce spoilage and waste would be undertaken.
The move is expected to checkmate the post-harvest losses currently put at N3.5 trillion annually.
The president also added that the livestock sector will be introduced to the best modern practices, stressing that steps would be taken to minimise the perennial conflict over land and water resources in the sector.
Brilliant as these efforts may sound, but it all still boils down to effective implementation as successive governments have over the years left Nigerians on empty stomachs and promises.
Without further ado, agro stakeholders like many other Nigerians are seeking an aggressive approach by the federal government to revolutionise the nation’s agro sector as a matter of urgency.
Addressing rising food prices
The present administration must prioritise the food sector like never before by creating the level playing field and encouraging farmers to produce more. It has been over flogged that one major factor responsible for the skyrocketing food prices is the inability of farmers to produce more than the nation’s demand.
According to the law of supply and demand, a higher price leads to a lower quantity demanded while a lower price leads to a higher quantity demanded. For Nigeria to achieve the latter, farmers need to be supported and encouraged to produce more than the country’s food requirements. Farmers who still depend on hoes and cutlasses; farmers who have fled their farms over fear of being kidnapped by bandits; farmers with no access to modernised farm inputs and seedlings; farmers with little or no access to funds and farmers who struggle to get their produce from the farm gate to link rural and urban markets as a result of poor access road networks can never meet the nation’s food target.
Ailing research institutions
Many agric research institutions across the country are more like graveyards. Despite several calls from stakeholders seeking to revamp these institutions for improved service delivery, they have remained unfunded as budgetary allocations to make these research institutions help Nigeria’s drive to diversify the economy through the agro sector have remained inadequate.
Juxtaposing Nigeria’s annual spend on its agro research institutes with other advanced economies of the world that have invested intentionally into their food sectors, shows that that Nigeria is yet to take the bull by the horn. The N291.4 billion allocated to the agricultural sector out of a budget of N16.9 trillion in 2022 showed that managers of the Nigerian economy are yet to tackle the age-long bottlenecks that have crippled the nation’s agro sector over the decades.
Collaborations with stakeholders
One thing the things Tinubu’ administration must prioritise is to appoint pro-business personnel that would help achieve his renewed hope agenda. Agro stakeholders have over the years lamented the wide gap that exists between key agro stakeholders and the government. There is need to always carry key agro stakeholders along especially during formulating and implementing agro policies that would shape the future of the nation.
Increasing agro stakeholders’ engagement would no doubt give the present administration the opportunity to identify genuine agro gladiators and channel funds to the real actors in the sector.
This would also block all the loop holes that have been created by successive administrations that siphoned funds meant for the agro development for their personal gains. The move would also ensure that most brilliant initiatives and programmes aimed at revamping the sector comes to fusion rather than remaining on the shelves.
Investment in agro-tech
Many young and enterprising agro entrepreneurs are making the nation proud with their innovative solutions targeted at attaining food security. All these agro entrepreneurs need is just a little push from the federal government to improve their technologies to reach a wider audience.
There must be a political will to support agro entrepreneurs in the country by way of funding and policies to attract both local and foreign investors into the agro-tech space. Agro-tech would also go a long way to combat drudgery in agriculture. Many youths today are migrating to the urban areas in search of white-collar jobs.
In a country like Nigeria, where the farming population is ageing, there is an urgent need to create the right environment for youths to be attracted into agriculture, which agro-tech can help to achieve
