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Often time, when people want to invest in agriculture, they express frustration over inability to identify just where the opportunities are.
Audu Ogbeh, the minister of agriculture in an address at BusinessDay’s Agribusiness and Food Security Summit a few weeks ago, had identified areas of opportunity which he said Nigerian ‘agropreneurs’ could leverage on the unmet demand.
This article presents these areas of opportunities as explained by the minister, in what could be described as an optimistic view. Subsequently, a few of these areas will be discussed in-depth to know just how feasible it is for Nigerians to utilise those opportunities, and perhaps, what needs to be done if the situation will be remedied.
According to Ogbeh; in the Middle East they are asking us to export goat meat to them, 120 thousand carcases a week of goat. Who is going to rear the goats? Farmers!
There is a small quarrel between the United States and China, soybeans and sorghum are part of items in dispute. The Chinese have a preference for the hybrid soybean from Nigeria, and will like us to sell them two million tonnes of soybean per annum. That is quite a place to do some business. They also want sorghum. We also export sesame seed to many parts of the world, yet not producing enough.
“We are also required to sell fruits to the rest of the world. Nigeria is the only country in the tropics whose fruits are not readily available in European markets because we have not bothered to develop that market. I went to the London fruits market once, accompanied by a young boy from Ondo state. We went at 2 in the morning, when aircrafts where coming from all over the world. I didn’t see anything from Nigeria and I left there visibly upset, and yet we have some of the finest mangoes, avocado pears, and oranges rotting away in our farms. Why aren’t we part of that business? It is because we didn’t bother on account of oil and gas,” said Ogbeh.
Five areas that could be identified from this are:
Goat carcases (required in the Middle east)
Soybean
Sorghum
Sesame seed
Fruits (especially for European markets)
After the summit, at least one person who spoke with Agribusiness Insight was already in Gombe state where according to him “there are lots of goats here”. Others who are so inclined may want to check out the state, in addition to the international cattle market in Potiskum. But this is of course, after doing due diligence to secure the required off takers in the middle-east.
Ogbeh also mentioned rice production, which could have made our list six, but we will leave it out for now.
Next week we’ll examine how feasible it is for potential Nigerian agropreneurs to take advantage of these opportunities, and in the event the verdict is not quite positive, we will endeavour to chart a way forward.
CALEB OJEWALE
Twiiter: @calebtinolu
