If words alone suffice, agriculture is to become the cornerstone of Nigeria’s economy. But the country currently does not even have an agriculture policy since the last one code-named ‘Green Alternative’ terminated in 2020. Yet, the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has repeatedly claimed agriculture is what it is betting on to stimulate Nigeria’s ailing economy, and contribute towards creating the millions of jobs it envisages.
Apart from attention the sector should be getting, if government rhetoric is anything to go by, the existence or not of a policy would not be a big deal. But this is also the first time in 10 years that Nigeria would be without an agric policy.
In 2011, Goodluck Jonathan, with Akinwumi Adesina then as minister of agriculture, launched the Agriculture Transformation Agenda (ATA). Under Muhammadu Buhari as president in 2015, the Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP) was launched to cover 2016 to 2020, to consolidate on the already established ATA policy.
However, with rising food prices and struggling agricultural productivity, a policy could have helped give direction to the sector, while also giving confidence to those that would want to consider investing. At the time of filing this report, Nigeria has not unveiled any such new policy.
“There is no clear-cut advertised policy,” said Kabir Ibrahim, national president, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), saying, “The minister of agriculture is not hands-on in how to drive agriculture.”
Emmanuel Ijewere, vice president, Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), also reiterated the AFAN president’s position, saying, “There is no policy” for agriculture at the moment, and this has the sector’s administration in the country rudderless.
BusinessDay learnt a committee was set up early last year to come upwith a new agriculture policy before the old one expired, but so far, that objective has not been achieved.
Ibrahim said a former AFAN state chairman who was a member of the committee tasked with ‘fine tuning’ the new policy reported they met only twice and till date there is no final document.
Ijewere said the same thing, noting someone else in the same committee, who described it as an unserious committee that was more concerned with importation of tractors.
“Early last year, we started putting another policy together, but the new minister brought in Brazilians for a programme hinged on bringing in tractors from Brazil for money making rather than a policy,” Ijewere said.
A mechanisation programme being promoted by the government is what Ijewere was referring to. This is a $1.2 billion loan under the Green Imperative project (GIP), an agricultural bilateral project between Nigeria and Brazil that is expected to boost mechanisation and help farmers improve their productivity.
The mechanisation programme has been confused by some people as the new agriculture policy, which it clearly is not, but at best, something that should have emanated from a broader, comprehensive policy. Tractors for instance will mostly serve crop farmers, but agriculture is beyond tilling the soil, and mechanisation needs are far beyond tractors or even just primary farm equipment.
For Bello Dogondaji, national general secretary, Federation of Agricultural Commodity Associations of Nigeria (FACAN), the mechanisation programme suffices as a policy.
“The present minister introduced a policy on mechanisation, which has to do with the Brazilian government,” said Dogondaji, noting, “Their intention was to ensure mechanisation is along the complete value chain; production, processing and marketing. From the primitive, small-holder farming, it wants us to upgrade to mechanisation.”
While programmes and policies are sometimes used interchangeably, a programme is traditionally a by-product of policymaking, one of identified means to achieve the broad objectives of a policy. The policy embodies the overall direction of a government, specific problems to be addressed and expected outcomes, while programmes are deployed to address different aspects of that policy.
“A policy comes from an intellectual input, and this only comes from intellectually sound people. You cannot compare Adesina with the current minister, not even with Audu Ogbeh in terms of intellectual ability,” said a prominent player in the agric sector who pleaded anonymity.
“For you to say we lack a policy, this minister has only one agenda in his life; to become the next governor of Kano State. He is rudderless, likewise the ministry of agriculture,” said the anonymous source.
For Ijewere, however, agriculture’s saving grace is not being in the exclusive list, therefore, as the state governments increasingly realise there will be less money from the centre, they have to develop their agricultural potentials. Each state is beginning to set up its agricultural policy, which is a better way to drive the sector than a centrally led one.
The implication of Nigeria lacking an agriculture policy as BusinessDay learnt implies the country is not walking its talk in developing agriculture to drive economic growth, fight unemployment, and curb food insecurity.
