The plethora of policy inconsistencies in Nigeria has over the years seen producers and other players in the agricultural value chain experience losses, and often discouraged from increasing their capacity.
Addressing this is now being hinged on legislative support for the sector, as a way of ensuring standards are enshrined across value chains, and ensuring activities are immune from policy flip flops.
Getting enabling laws however remains elusive in Nigeria, and presently two bills; the Seed bill and Fertiliser quality control bill are awaiting passage at the National Assembly. A third bill, the National Agribusiness Investment Plan for Food and Nutrition Security in Nigeria bill, is being drafted by the Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG) for presentation this year, as a measure to remove some of the major constraints facing private sector agribusiness investments in Nigeria. These include; Lack of affordable long-term financing; Lack of government coordination; Policy inconsistencies; Lack of supply security; Inadequate public sector infrastructure investments; Lack of applied food and agricultural research science and technology transfer capacity.
Others are lack of consumer insights and nutrition sensitive agriculture best practices; Lack of local content foreign direct investment policies, regulations, and laws; Lack of climate smart agriculture best practices.
Sani Dangote, vice president, Dangote group, and president of NABG, had noted at the end of year press conference for 2017, that, “There is overwhelming evidence that lack of affordable financing, inadequate infrastructure, lack of supply securities, inconsistencies of government policies and regulations are top among constraints facing agribusiness investments in Nigeria.
“With the passage into law of the National Agribusiness Investment Plan for Food and Nutrition Security in Nigeria, these constraints are expected to be permanently addressed. The importance of legislation in scaling up agriculture can be seen from countries where legal backing is given for the sector to thrive,” Dangote said.
Tunji Owoeye, group managing director, Elephant Group Plc, told BusinessDay by phone that having requisite legislations to drive agribusiness in Nigeria will “give a firm policy directive for consistency and adherence to international practice, and also for effective regulative framework to also enforce minimum standard practices and funding. Furthermore, for stability of interventions and for a legislative protection of government medium and long term planning.”
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Ade Adefeko, vice president, government and corporate affairs, Olam Nigeria, expressed the view that enabling legislations will ensure “there is a level playing field”.
“On seeds, what is important is to make sure we have seed companies that provide the right hybrids and at a cost farmers/users can afford and help stimulate agricultural production. On fertilizer ditto but we must encourage blending plants and emulate a country like Morocco which has numerous phosphate plants (a major component for fertilizer production and the P in NPK) and is the second largest producer of world’s phosphate. Fertilizer plants should be encouraged to bring down the cost of fertilizer but gas should be available to power them too.
“In a nutshell, the bills must address industry concerns and agitations,” said Adefeko.
In Africa, Kenya and South Africa are among countries with existing legislation in one form of the other, which ensure agribusiness meets set standards, and offers considerable protection for local producers. For instance, the Kenya Agriculture Act provides a legal framework in support of a stable agricultural sector through developing agricultural land “in accordance with the accepted practices of good land management and crop husbandry”. A significant point of focus was increasing food production and securing national food security through a variety of regulatory measures such as the administration of Guaranteed Minimum Returns. The Act also set out rules and regulations on issues such as land ownership; promotion of efficient land use and proper land husbandry even as it created various organs and bodies to oversee a range of regulatory functions, according to information on the Kenya flower council’s website, an industry which has established significant success in exports to Europe.
Similar feats are also possible in Nigeria where local production struggles to compete against foreign alternatives which often the market at lower prices; adherence to quality and standards; illogical food inflation; and inefficient supply chain processes, amongst other factors which are avoidable if appropriate legal guarantees are available to secure the flow of activities within the sector.
CALEB OJEWALE
