Some of the issues affecting Nigeria’s agriculture in the last five years have remained despite billions of naira spent by the government and yearly interventions from international donor agencies.
It is still about worsening insecurity, lack of efficient infrastructure, inflation, and poor funding, among others.
Here are four critical issues that will impact the country’s agricultural productivity in 2024.
EU deforestation law
The European Parliament recently approved a ban on the importation of commodities tied to deforestation, a leading cause of climate change that accounts for 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) which will come into force later this year largely affects palm oil, cocoa, rubber, coffee, beef, wood, and soybean.
The new law requires companies to undergo a due diligence process and provide traceable information that proves their products were not grown in areas deforested or degraded after 2020.
Countries such as Nigeria, Brazil, Malaysia, and Ethiopia among others who are major growers of some of these commodities have lost an enormous amount of tree cover in recent years and will be greatly impacted by the EU law if they fail to comply.
Nigeria is a top producer of cocoa, and the commodity is its main export cash crop. The country exported 208 million metric tonnes of cocoa beans in 2021 and earned $628 million from the crop in the same period, according to data from the International Trade Centre.
Africa’s most populous country is currently making efforts to see that cocoa beans destined for the EU market comply with the deforestation law, but such efforts must be rapid to make progress or the bulk of its export to the region may be rejected. If this happens, the country’s non-oil export proceeds will be negatively impacted.
Security crisis
The continuous killings in key crop-producing states are worsening the plight of farmers who are already faced with a myriad of crises and a threat to the country’s food production.
The security situation in the country is adversely affecting food production and causing a surge in imports.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that Africa’s most populous country spent N1.6 trillion in the first nine months of 2023 importing food, a 14 percent increase from N1.4 trillion it spent on food imports in the same period of 2022.
“Lots of farmers have abandoned their farms for fear of being kidnapped,” said Ibrahim Kabiru, national president of All Farmers Association of Nigeria.
“Farmers should be able to carry out their farming activities without any form of fear and harvest without having to pay bandits. These are crucial in preventing a food crisis,” he added.
Surging input costs
The high cost of key inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, farm machines, herbicides, and pesticides, among others, is frustrating farmers who are currently struggling to survive the inflationary pressure.
The prices of farm inputs are surging owing to foreign exchange (FX) volatility as most of the seeds, pesticides, herbicides and farm machines used in farming are imported and impacted by the FX volatility.
There is a shortage of critical crops that power Nigeria’s major agro-industries and food systems, including rice, maize, wheat, and soybeans.
Nigeria still relies on imports for the majority of its crops to bridge the supply gap, thus leading to a surge in the prices of food across the country.
The naira lost 96.5 percent of its value against the dollar in 2023 at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market, data compiled by BusinessDay from the FMDQ indicated.
Prices of NPK – a fertiliser blend mostly used by smallholder farmers have jumped 300 percent since 2022.
The prices of pesticides and herbicides have increased by 100 percent since last year. Seed and seedling prices have also doubled.
Climate change
Daily extreme weather events are putting pressure on the ecosystem that farmers depend on. The impact will be greatly felt in 2024 across countries and continents as global temperature continues to get warmer.
The Nigerian government has constantly failed to tackle climate change as yearly flooding in the south and drought conditions in the north highlight the government’s inability to tackle challenges associated climate change.
As a result, extreme weather events have continued to negatively impact agricultural activities in recent years and 2024 would not be different.
Experts who spoke with BusinessDay have predicted that climate change will play a key role in farmers’ productivity in the new year.
According to them, extreme weather conditions are likely to affect not only the outcome of 2024 farming seasons but also the government’s plans to stop food importation which is over N1 trillion annually or at least reduce it to the barest minimum.
The extreme weather conditions not only affect crop production but also livestock and fish production.
“The sign of climate change has become evident daily in our lives and the impact has been massive in the agricultural sector. The weather conditions will affect the quality of crops and the pricing,” said Desmond Majekodunmi, an environmentalist.
