There is an obvious and urgent need to
increase food production. And
increased farming is a good start
towards that end. But the challenge
Nigeria faces is not just one of
increasing agricultural production.
It’s also a challenge of reducing food
losses and waste; it’s a challenge of
making the agricultural sector more
competitive in terms of creating more
desirable jobs, higher profits, better
work conditions, higher salaries; it’s a
challenge of attracting and absorbing
its young population into the
agricultural value chain; it’s a challenge
of effectively linking agriculture to
other sectors of the economy to create
the kind of synergy needed to truly
drive growth in the entire agricultural
value chain and the economy at large;
it’s a challenge of driving down
unemployment and building a
sustainable economic future driven by
agriculture.
These challenges will not
be met simply by creating
more farms.
In order to overcome these challenges,
production agriculture (upstream –
which also includes all input supply
activity) must be linked effectively to
10 The Export Brief | MAY 2018 | IEOM-NG.ORG
downstream activities (including
storage, handling, processing, logistics,
marketing, retail) – what we broadly
refer to as agribusiness.
Agribusiness in this context means the
totality of industry and activities that
provides the crucial link between
production agriculture (including
farming) and other sectors of the
economy (manufacturing,
transportation, financial, services, etc).
If agriculture is to truly drive economic
growth, employment and sustainable
development, the country needs a well-
functioning agribusiness ecosystem. A
functioning agribusiness sector will
ultimately lead to higher incomes for
farmers; increased competitiveness for
the country’s agricultural products both
domestically and in international
markets, accelerated development and
sustainable economic growth.
The country has no choice but to invest
massively in developing the
agribusiness sector. We’re seeing
glimpses of this already happening.
At the federal and state government
levels, lot of awareness and training
programs focused on agribusiness are
already on. The drive to create and
increase the share of agribusinesses is
already on, especially at the state level.