Agro-allied industries remain the driving force to grow the Nigerian economy, says Dr Adefowokan Ajila, an agricultural economist at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.
Ajila made this assertion during an interview in Osogbo on Wednesday.
She said: “the comatose nature of the real sector of our economy can be ascribed to the little attention paid to agro-allied industries in a country, where most of our cash crops should have been transformed to raw materials.
“Agro-allied industries are very key to the development of an agricultural environment like ours, where the mainstay of our economy before now was agriculture, with good arable land.
‘’Going by the economic theory of specialisation, nations should produce more of products where they have comparative advantage and by implication, agriculture remains our comparative advantage.
‘’We can develop our economy as a nation by investing more in the agriculture sector and create more employment and wealth through the agro-allied industries.’’
The don blamed the slow growth of the economy on its mono-cultural nature.
He suggested that developing nations like Nigeria which have agriculture as its comparative advantage, should focus on developing some cash crops such as cocoa, coffee and groundnut, among others.
According to him, these crops are important industrial raw materials capable of earning more money for the country and creating more employment opportunities for the populace.
Similarly, an expert in Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology, Mrs Subomi Diekola, emphasised the need to diversify the economy through the development of agro-allied industries.
Diekola said the importation of some raw materials which could have been produced in Nigeria from the plethora of agricultural produce, was worrisome and inimical to the growth and development of the nation.
“There is no way we can grow as a nation, if we continue to import raw materials for the production of products like cocoa, tea, butter, coffee and groundnut oil when we have it in abundance here.
‘’You can imagine the number of employment the sector can generate for the country and revenue it will bring, considering the size of the market for the products; it will indeed be awesome,’’ she said.
