For Nigeria to boost its agricultural production and drive investments, experts say Nigeria must tackle the worsening insecurity and climate crisis that have continued to limit productivity.
The experts who spoke at a recent Food and Energy summit held recently in Lagos said that the worsening situation is shrinking farming communities as farmers are forced to flee tense states for safety, driving a surge in food prices and fueling a cost of living crisis in the country.
They stated that the country’s worsening insecurity and the impact of climate change have greatly impacted food production for over a decade, leading to a shortfall in most key staples, deterring investments and accelerating headline inflation.
Mezuo Nwuneli, managing partner at Sahel Capital, said the country needs to tackle insecurity before an inflow of local and foreign currency can occur.
In his keynote address, Abubakar Kyari, minister of Agriculture, said the country is battling with multiple issues influencing food production – from drought to banditry attacks in food-producing states to flooding that has wiped away several farms.
“Insecurity, particularly in rural farming communities, causes a significant threat to agricultural activities, displacing farmers and destructing food production,” he said.
“Degradation driven by overuse of land amid poor management practices continues to reduce agricultural yields,” he added.
According to him, Nigeria needs to invest in climate-smart agriculture to make its food system more resilient to the effects of climate change. He called for the acceleration in the adoption of high-yielding, climate-resilient seeds.
On his part, Alexander Isong, president of the Organisation for Technology Advancement of Cold Chain in West Africa (OTACCAWA), said Nigeria battles with post-harvest losses that affect food production.
He stressed that without a permanent solution to food loss, food insecurity will continue to be out of the country’s grasp.
“We keep talking about increasing food production, however, 40 to 60 percent of our food is lost after harvest,” he noted.
“Nigeria needs to start talking about the cold chain. If we want to ramp up our food production. We need to begin to look at building cold chain infrastructures,” Isong explained.
Isong said Nigeria lags among other African countries such as Kenya which exports about $1.2 billion from cold chains, and Egypt with $2.5 billion.
“Cold chain business has a market value of about $200 billion annually, yet we seem not to want any fraction in that. We cannot keep talking about ramping food production without storage and transportation.”
Kabiru Rabiu, Group executive director for BUA Foods, urged the government and stakeholders to move beyond the conversations and start taking actions to drive food production in the country.
“We need to stop talking and begin to act. We have been sitting in panels for years to discuss solutions but nothing is done as a follow-up,” he said.
Rabiu said Africa’s most populous nation needed more sustainable actionable plans that cut beyond conversations on food security. He noted that until working solutions are put in place, Nigeria would remain food insecure.
“Nigeria’s agriculture needs dams for irrigation, we need to employ mechanisation in farming. So long as we continue to sit and clap in panels without active solutions, we will continue to clap for the next 100 years,” he stressed.
Rabiu called for a National Agricultural Development Programme and a body to drive and execute it.
He said achieving food security calls for serious engagement and collaboration between the private sector, government institutions, and development finance institutions.
The conference was organised by the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), White & Case, Nigeria Sovereign Investment Society, and Afreximbank.
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