Africa’s most populous country must ensure that smallholder farmers – who produce the bulk of the food consumed, have access to quality seeds if it truly wants to boost its agricultural exports, experts say.
The experts who spoke at the Talking Trade and Investment Global webinar organised in partnership with BusinessDay themed ‘Nigeria’s Agricultural Sector: Balancing Domestic Consumption Needs against International Trade Opportunities,’ said that the nation’s export market could be well maximised should attention be given to quality food production.
They noted that farmers’ inadequate access to quality seeds limits the country’s huge export potential.
Elyon Ukiomogbe, operator of Havillah Brooks Farms, said high-quality seeds produced by research institutes such as the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, will help boost food production and create quality commodities suitable for trade in the international market.
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“We need researchers to help with disease-resistant seeds that can help farmers. Farmers struggle with a lot of disease ravaging their crops and research in that area will help Nigeria in the international trade market,” she said.
Ukiomogbe further said that a lack of disease-resistant crops limits the quantity and quality of food production and is the reason why many Nigerian food items are rejected by international traders.
“Farmers need awareness to know how to tackle disease in their crops. Nigeria has the lands and resources to be the food basket of Africa but we need to tackle the situation that impairs us from fully maximising our potential.”
She explained that the dependence on rain-fed farming is also a setback to food export.
According to her, farmers should have silos for proper storage of food commodities that are independent of both rainy and dry seasons, and that cannot only meet the food needs of Nigerians but can also be exported.
The country’s huge post-harvest loss is another factor limiting Nigeria’s export potential.
A study showed that in Nigeria, a significant quantity of food is lost both before and after storage, with losses of up to 20 to 30 percent of all grains, 30 to 50 percent of roots and tubers, and a larger proportion of fruits and vegetables.
In 2020, Nigeria’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development reported that approximately 700,000 tons of tomatoes rot as waste yearly.
The country needs to look at how foods can be transported to other countries without spoilage, she said. “We can export to other countries when these things are put in place.”
Ahmed Adigun, managing director of DS Executive Farm Consult, said Nigeria needs to fully adopt mechanisation to achieve food sufficiency as well as export to other countries in the international market.
Adigun cited the lack of mechanisation as a limitation of the agric sector.
He said it costs a huge amount of money to hire tractors on a farm, noting that it is not financially prudent for farmers who many times are poor.
“Nigeria is currently not feeding itself conveniently for it to start to export to other countries,” he said.
“But we cannot stay behind. Other countries are exporting already. We also have to export.”
He called for the adoption of cluster farming, which is a kind of farming that merges a group of smallholder farms to share costs and revenue.
Adigun pointed out that with cluster farming, farmers can afford to use mechanised tools on their farms because the burden of the bill involved will be shared by the group, which according to him will help to achieve food sufficiency.
Farming in Nigeria is predominantly done in a subsistence manner by rural farmers, hence mechanisation is currently limited to privileged farmers, and this is affecting food production.
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