farm yield through the increased use
certified seeds, mechanization, etc.
This generally sums up the
approach taken so far.
Government efforts (policies, financial
incentives, etc) since the seventies have
focused on improving the factors
mentioned above. And to date, little
has been achieved.
An obvious problem with this approach
is that there are gaps in the value chain
which are being knowingly or
unknowingly ignored. In efforts to
boost non-oil (especially, agricultural)
exports and reduce food imports,
Nigerians are being encouraged to farm
more. Very little attention is paid to
developing a functional agribusiness
value chain, little attention is paid to
developing key infrastructure and little
to no meaningful investments are being
made in education, research and
development, innovation, gender parity,
health and developing human capital.
A need to acknowledge
collective failure
The failure to improve especially our
agricultural sector is a failure of the
entire Nigerian system.
For starters, it is important for all
stakeholders – federal, state and local
government policy makers and their
ministries, departments and agencies
(MDAs), the organized private sector,
right through to smallholder farmers,
the academic sector and other social
groups – to acknowledge their roles in
the journey to where we find ourselves
today. There is more than enough
blame to go round.
That Nigeria is today struggling to
improve its export performance even
within the ECOWAS economic area,
struggling to take real advantage of the
Africa Growth and Opportunities Act
(AGOA) and other trade agreements is
as much the fault of the government as
it is the fault of the private sector and
the academic sector. That Nigeria,
boasting the largest economy in Africa
is jittery about signing a continental free
trade agreement with much smaller
neighbours is much more an indictment
of Nigeria as a country than it is of any
external forces.
There is no quick fix to
this situation.
The decline of Nigeria‘s agricultural and
other non-oil sectors did not happen
overnight. It was a gradual decline
which was knowingly or unknowingly
allowed to get out of hand. At this
stage, it should be abundantly clear that
this situation will not be resolved