Nigeria’s agricultural imperative: Need for a consolidated policy framework (Part 2)

This is the second part of a series of articles reviewing Nigeria’s five major agricultural policies since 1985. The review of the first two was undertaken last week. The last three ought to have been reviewed today, but it turned out that this entire article will be devoted to only the review of the third major agricultural policy framework, “The Green Revolution and Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) (2011–2015) because of its extensiveness and robustness. The ATA was a strategic and comprehensive agricultural blueprint that set out to truly transform the Nigerian agricultural sector, aiming “to create over 3.5 million jobs from rice, cassava, sorghum, and cotton value chains, with many more jobs to come from other value chains under implementation” and “provide over 300 billion naira (US$ 2 billion) of additional income in the hands of Nigerian farmers.” It also launched a vigorous campaign to substitute 20 percent of bread wheat flour with cassava flour, which was expected to inject 60 billion naira (US$380 million) into the economy.

The ATA took a refreshing departure from previous agricultural policy frameworks by reviewing the past glory of our agricultural sector and subsequent decline. It revealed how, in 1961, Nigeria was the global leader in the production of groundnuts, with a 42 percent share of global exports; 27 percent of global palm oil exports; 18 percent of global cocoa exports; and 1.4 percent of global cotton exports, making it the leading cotton exporter in West Africa. By 2008, Nigeria had lost its dominance in groundnut exports to China, the United States, and Argentina; Indonesia and Malaysia had overtaken Nigeria in palm oil exports; and our West African competitors, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, had become dominant players in cocoa exports, while Mali and Burkina Faso led in cotton exports. The overarching objective of ATA (2011–2015) was to transform and reposition Nigerian agriculture to attain food security and regain Nigeria’s past glory in agricultural production and exports.

Owing to the poor use of agricultural inputs like fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and tractors and poor access to improved seeds, agricultural productivity and output were low, while Nigeria’s population growth rate averaged about 3 percent for the period under review (1985–2010). The result was a yawning gap between local food production and demand, which turned Nigeria into a huge importer of food, which grew at an unsustainable rate of 11 percent per year. Nigeria became the world’s largest importer of hard red and white winter wheat and the second-largest importer of rice, among other food items like sugar and fish.

“In response to the huge deficits in local food production, the ATA sought to embark on an aggressive production of local staples.”

In response to the huge deficits in local food production, the ATA sought to embark on an aggressive production of local staples. Massive local production of milled rice was aimed at substituting high-quality parboiled imported rice, which was projected to decline in demand from 1.9 million metric tonnes to 1.3 million metric tonnes between 2011 and 2015 and shift in demand for milled rice from zero metric tonnes in 2011 to 1.1 million in 2015. Similarly, the transformation in cassava was expected to double the yield of cassava tuber from 12.5 metric tonnes per hectare as of 2010 to 25 metric tonnes per hectare by 2015 and create 1.2 million jobs, and the yield of sorghum was expected to increase from 0.75 metric tonnes per hectare to 2.5 metric tonnes per hectare with 150,000 jobs. Likewise, cocoa yield was expected to increase from 300 kg/ha to 500 kg/ha, with the creation of 360,000 jobs.

The vision of the transformation strategy was to achieve a hunger-free Nigeria through an agricultural sector that drove income growth, accelerated achievement of food and nutritional security, generated employment, and transformed Nigeria into a leading player in global food markets to grow wealth for millions of farmers. Thus, agriculture was no longer to be seen as a “development programme,” but as a business. To achieve this paradigm shift, extensive restructuring in fertiliser procurement and distribution that lent itself to private sector initiatives and efficiency was introduced, along with marketing institutions, financial value chains, and an agricultural investment framework. Quite a number of new institutional frameworks and transformative programmes were introduced. These included the Nigerian Incentive-Based Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) – a financial institution which was launched by the Central Bank of Nigeria in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Bankers Committee in 2011 and incorporated in 2013 – as a public-private sector initiative to stimulate the flow of affordable finance into the agricultural sector; the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) investment which targeted at 20 million farmers, the Agricultural Transformation Implementation Council (ATIC), the Agricultural Investment Transformation Implementation Group (AITEG), the Agricultural Value Chain Transformation Implementation Group (AVCTEG) and NIRSAL Implementation Group.

Transformation plans were targeted at thirteen commodity value chains in geopolitical zones. These included transformation plans for rice, cassava, sorghum, cocoa, cotton, maize, beef, dairy, leather, poultry, fishery, oil palm, and agricultural extension.

ATA was truly transformative. It set key performance indicators (KPIs)—specific and ambitious agricultural production targets with timelines—unlike previous agricultural policies, which set general objectives and targets. It set agricultural policy from a strategic perspective with reference to global and African success stories. It introduced for the first time the agricultural value chain concept by focusing not just on improved production as previous policies did but also on processors, traders, distributors, and other service providers along the value chain. It sought to mainstream ICT in the provision of agricultural extension services, and unlike previous agricultural policies that lacked political commitment, ATA had the imprimatur of the then Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, who was an international agricultural technocrat. ATA was not just a policy framework but truly a strategic agricultural transformation plan.

Mr Igbinoba is Team Lead/CEO at ProServe Options Consulting, Lagos.