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Nigeria’s target of achieving economic expansion through agribusiness is steadily being hit by poor value chain development in the sector, which makes it hard for all the relevant players to predict outcomes.
“In the agricultural value chain, there is no synergy. What we have seen is a disconnect among players,” Dahiru J.M. Adamu, national president, Nigerian Institute of Food Science and Technology (NIFST), said on Wednesday at the National Quality Project forum held in Lagos.
“The farmer needs a researcher who tells him a lot about his crops and produce, based on scientific findings. This rarely happens. If you bring a truck of oranges from Benue to Lagos, you can’t sell unless you give it to a cabal. If we must develop, the key drivers in the value chain must be identified,” Adamu said.
Estimates show that 750,000 metric tons of tomato are wasted annually on the back of value chain problems, which include persistent poor storage practices, inadequate processing technology and inefficient transport system used for the distribution of fresh tomatoes.
Cassava can be processed into flour that can be used by flour millers. The immediate past administration of Goodluck Jonathan mandated flour millers to reduce wheat importation and add between 10 and 20 percent of High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) into wheat for the manufacture of bakery and confectionaries.
However, flour millers complain that many cassava processors do not produce HQCF owing to processing challenges rising from lack of finance. Again, there is still poor level of innovation in the cassava value chain, as Nigeria remains a heavy importer of starch and flour despite the country being the biggest cassava tuber producer in the world.
Despite Nigeria’s cassava capacity, local brewers cannot yet produce cassava, which is currently thriving in Mozambique, Uganda, Ghana and South Africa. Since 2011 when SABMiller launched cassava beer in Mozambique, the brewer has sold 100 million bottles, while getting cassava from smallholder farmers, BusinessDay findings show.
In Nigeria’s oil palm industry, seeds and fertilizers are often adulterated and unimproved, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
The traditional method is mainly used in the production process, which accounts for low yields. In the distribution value chain, farmers make little profits while middlemen make more gains by hoarding palm oil and reselling them twice the price. There is also absence of a good rail infrastructure, good roads and storage facilities.
“We are still producing the whole raw cashew for the world market. However, we do not have the processing capacity to give the world cashew as a value-added product,” Olusegun Awolowo, director-general/CEO, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), who was represented by Abdul Sadiq Aliyu, said.
The Nigerian market can pay for quality agro foods, Awolowo said, citing the case of retail shops as evidence that Nigerian are craving for quality products.
Nigerian products suffer rejections on the back of poor export practices such as the use of wrong insecticides, poor packaging and wrong quality. Some of Nigeria’s food items such as beans are still banned from entering the European market due to the use of wrong insecticides. The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) is helping Nigeria to develop the National Quality Project that will ensure foods from Nigeria have access to the global market without hitches.
Shaukat Malik, lead technical adviser for the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), said it was impossible to discuss the agriculture value chain without making reference for standards and quality.
“It is a big risk to have a poor quality infrastructure. Poor quality infrastructure results in low ease of doing business and certificates without credibility. This is why some products from Nigeria are rejected,” Malik said.
