With only 34 million hectares cultivated out of the 82 million hectares of arable land available, Gilbert Ekugbe writes that Nigeria’s hunger situation is artificial.
The quest to achieve food security by 2030 is on the cards as food inflation continues to rise pushing more Nigerians into poverty levels.
A report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) stated that insecurity and COVID-19 have exposed over 12 million Nigerians to extreme hunger. It said that the figure would most likely escalate if measures were not taken to address food shortages in the country.
The FAO’s Communications Officer, Mr. David Tsokar, stated recently that approximately 12.1 million people are expected to face food scarcity through December, which called for urgent need by economic managers to take drastic measures to boost food production in the country.
Surprisingly, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Mohammed Abubakar, lamented that the meager amount allocated to the agricultural sector would not be enough to feed Nigeria’s growing populace, adding that investments in the nation’s ability to boost food production should be prioritised.
Nigeria’s Agriculture Sector
Nigeria’s agriculture sector output has been on the decline due to rising insecurity in the country, effects of COVID-19 on socio-economic lives and utilisation of poor inputs that yielded low output across key crops in the country.
However, agricultural output could be improved by deploying smart farming technologies and utilising quality inputs. The world is on the run to do more with little available resources. Therefore, it is a matter of categorical imperative that Nigeria must wake up from its slumber and start to prioritise investments into the nation’s agricultural sector.
For over 40 years, the yield for most key crops such as cassava, cocoa beans and wheat have been on the decline due to low utilisation of improved seedlings, agrochemicals and poor adoption of technology while the yield of rice has increased significantly owing to the federal government’s increased support for local rice production by providing subsidised agrochemicals and credit facilities through various intervention schemes under the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP).
Agricultural land usage in the country has also increased across key crops like cassava, cocoa beans, rice paddy and wheat largely driven by the increased population engaged in farming, but the level of production is still being hindered by lack of mechanisation as Nigeria still depend on hoes and cutlasses to meet the food needs of its fast growing population.
It is hoped that with smart agri-tech companies coming up in droves to deploy the use of technology and better inputs are expected to play an increasing role in raising agriculture productivity while also reducing the growth of agricultural land usage.
Nigeria’s share of global production of key crop on a negative growth
Nigeria’s share of global production has remained low over the past four decades. Specifically, the Director General, the Premier Agribusiness Academy (PAA), Mr. Francis Toromade, juxtaposing Nigeria and South Africa in the production of soybean, said with the same farmland size, South Africa generates 1.97 tonnes of soybeans per hectare, while Nigeria generates 0.97 tonnes per hectare.
Toromade, however, blamed the low yield per hectare of soybean on Nigeria farmers’ dearth of knowledge and technical ability.
He said that the PAA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) for private sector and farmers’ capacity building.
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), compared to other countries that produce cassava, cocoa bean, oil palm and groundnut, Nigeria’s yield remains low, adding that in 2014, yields for cassava, cocoa beans, oil palm and groundnuts were lower than the global average yield of all producing countries.
“This is possibly a reflection that unlike Nigeria, other countries utilise improved inputs and technology to increase their yield and production levels,” PWC said.
The PWC’s report further added that in the last five years, Nigeria’s share of global food consumption has averaged 3.4 per cent, the highest amongst all African countries. By 2050, Nigeria’s population is projected to hit 400 million, which would make it the third most populous country in the world.
“We expect food consumption to continue to grow by at least four per cent per annum. Thus, there is an urgent need to increase production to meet the country’s food requirement and achieve self-sufficiency,” PWC added.
Nigeria’s Penchant for Import
Nigeria’s food import bill between 2020 and 2021 went up by 140.47 per cent as Nigeria spent more importing agric products valued at N630.2 million and managed to export a meager N127.2 billion in agricultural products in the first quarter of 2021. According to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the value of imported agricultural products was 21.01 per cent higher than the value recorded in Q2 2021 and 56.74 per cent higher than Q3 2020 while agriculture goods export value in Q3 2021 was 5.9 per cent lower than Q2 2021, but 31.0 per higher than Q3 2020.
Nigeria’s major agricultural imports include wheat, sugar, fish and milk. These are commodities available in large quantities if only concrete, deliberate investments and policies by the federal government are pursued by vigour according to stakeholders in the agricultural sector.
Stakeholders’ Recommendation
Agric stakeholders have in different fora and workshops advocated for increased investment into the nation’s food space such as mechanised farming, ensuring improved seedlings, supporting research institutes to develop climate resilient crops and improved quality of farm inputs. According to them, Nigeria must invest in areas where it has competitive and comparative advantage to take the nation out of doldrums especially at a time when the world is rapidly moving away from hydrocarbon resources which remains Nigeria’s primary source of foreign exchange revenue plug.
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) at a security meets business forum it organised few months back, lamented on the high level of insecurity in the North East, noting that the situation is having a profound impact on food production.
The former President of the Chamber, Mrs. Toki Mabogunje, recommended that for the government to achieve better results in tackling insecurity, a key turning point should be to understand the causes of insecurity as well as to investigate the sources of social disorder and instability.
She stated the need for collective and integrative security architecture by the federal, state, and local governments in Nigeria, saying that this arrangement should produce a strong and coordinated presence at village, community, local, state, and federal levels with the responsibility of providing sensitive security information for security agencies in their areas of operation.
“This will assist in identifying criminals, their sponsors, and hideouts in the country. We urge the government to sustain the needed funding for defence operations to equip the military with advanced weaponry and intelligence infrastructure. These should be supported by heavy deployment of modern military intelligence technologies,” she said.
Similarly, the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), has urged the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Mohammad Abubakar, to work closely with key agricultural sector players to transform the nation’s agro sector, noting that this was one of the surest ways to revive the sector while also achieving food security.
The association also tasked the federal government through the Minister of Agriculture to have a consolidated Agriculture Promotion Policy (APP) for 2021-2024 taking into consideration the input of agriculture stakeholders to make comments, observations and recommendations.
