Nigeria's food import bill is about N1.92 trillion [1] or $6.5 billion [2]. Considering that the country's climate is very conducive for the production of virtually all that we require, it simply means that there are N1.92 trillion Naira worth of businesses that we are throwing away in this country. If we are able to harness this much money into the economy per year, I can see millions of jobs in the sector.
The only way this can happen is through the injection of money into the system for a shake up. While Dangote's recent gesture is good, I expect that more and more investors will tow his line. Also surprising is that with the increase in venture capitalist firms in Africa, a few care to invest in Nigerian Agriculture [3]. The argument has always being that Agriculture pay back has a long gestation period and the instability potential in Nigeria is high hence the risks are way beyond what these investors can stomach.
This scenario is unfortunate but also a blessing we have failed to harness. I think the response to this is to encourage small scale entrepreneurship amongst our people such that instead of having mega farms of a foreign entity, we should have thousands of small holders of entrepreneurs investing in our country and reaping the benefits of what it has to offer. This will not happen overnight. I feel sad when we hardly have programmes that work to attract entrepreneurs to Agriculture and food processing like we have in IT and the rest. The entrepreneurial spirit of the Nigerian is strong and bold but not foolish. Nigerians will not be attracted to failure. the system as it is, is designed against entrepreneurship; funds are lacking, access to seeds and markets are poor, infrastructure support is non existent. We can't take this anymore: We are NOT subsistence farmers; we are business people! And we want to make a living and contribute to our country but failure is staring at us from all angles because the basic support is not there. The result of these failures are that our budding young and enterprising citizens are left to fight for survival in the Agricultural sector and then ultimately leave because they cant stomach the failure in view of the lack of support. Unfortunately for Nigeria, we all loose. With crude oil soon becoming useless in the next decade [4,5], we better wake up!
Refs
1. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ad ... -BILLS.pdf
2. https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/western ... ola-masha/
3. http://www.businessdayonline.com/agricu ... ity-funds/
4.https://www.thecable.ng/oil-further-thr ... many-india
5.https://financialquest.com.ng/time-tick ... ak-future/
Despite $6.5 billion in Food Imports, Investors Fail to Come Why?
Re: Despite $6.5 billion in Food Imports, Investors Fail to Come Why?
Good points raised. But the failures provide opportunities in some cases. For example, where there are failures of extension services, there are opportunities for private sector initiatives. The other day I came across a site that ty to link small time investors with farmers across the country. You put in some money and that is made available to farmers and you get returns after some months. O don't know how it will work but that is the innovation I am talking about. Nothing beats government in reach and resources but, we need to start something. Wouldn't you agree?
