Agriculture has been enjoying attention from government, but the sector’s growth, as a component of GDP does not appear to mirror all the efforts and interventions, even though significant gains have been recorded.
FBN Quest Capital in a report this week, described agriculture as one of few sectors that have benefitted from policy continuity after the change in administration four years ago. However, agricultural GDP growth has not accelerated at the desired pace.
Over the past eight quarters, the sector has grown by an average of 2.7 per cent year-on-year. In Q4 2018, it expanded by 2.5 per cent year-on-year. The slow pace of growth is partly linked to output losses due to poor storage, logistics issues and challenges in the middle belt. Furthermore, export activities (particularly with neighbouring countries that have porous borders) by farmers, which are not formally captured result in distorted data.
Highlighting some of the significant progress made in the sector, FBN Quest noted that in reducing post-harvest losses, the Federal Government of Nigeria has adopted a new transportation model, which will connect eleven states in the Lagos-Kano-Jibiya (LAKAJI) corridor. The corridor is a 1,225 km transport route that runs from Lagos state through the commercial center of Kano state before ending in Jibiya, Katsina state, which is near the Niger Republic border.
This transport corridor, when completed, FBN Quest says should promote ease of distribution as farmers will be able to arrange pick-up from the farm-gate or transport produce to designated aggregated zones or commodity markets.
It noted that during a most recent visit to Abuja, it was learnt that government is currently considering solar generated energy for large-scale refrigeration and freezing of perishable goods, before transporting from points of production in the Northern region to markets in Southern Nigeria. This will also assist with curbing output losses.
The FBN publication also stated that the narrative around agriculture in Nigeria is gradually changing. Based on official data, the average age of farmers over the past 40 years has been between 50 -75 years. However, over the past four years, there has been an influx of young adults into the sector, aged 30 -40 years. Its value chain is broad and provides an opportunity to boost job creation as well as promote entrepreneurship.
Farming is also said to have received support from technology services. This includes crowd-funding platforms such as Thrive Agric and Farmcrowdy. In addition, due to high cost of securing tractors, small-scale farmers struggle with producing high yields, consequently, Hello Tractor, a technology-enabled service was developed to connect tractor owners and small-scale farmers in Nigeria.
The attraction in the export market may also be further bolstered, as the report noted that the CBN’s recent announcement to extend a N200bn facility to farmers for exportation of agric-related products, could be a step in the right direction.
CALEB OJEWALE
