Now that agriculture has bounced back into the mainstream of Nigeria’s economy, a good number of issues are worth our attention. Foremost, it needs to be emphasised that the growing recognition for agriculture in the recent past was not an indication that agriculture just suddenly became important. It could rather be argued that it has stayed too long in oblivion, at the realm of the informal sector without any organised way of assessing its performance, let alone determining its true contribution to the overall economy.
It might be that the 42 per cent of GDP recently attributed to agriculture might as well have been an under-estimation especially when various value chain activities are factored in. Now is the time to do a proper job of accounting for what agriculture brings to the national resource pool. Although, it is now officially recognised as capable of bailing out Nigeria from economic doldrums, the sector needs an early sectoral inventory to facilitate a good understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats being presented.
Any of these could arise from sudden surge of interest in the sector – from well-meaning, ignorant, aggressive, mischievous and sometimes unpatriotic players who could upturn the apple cart. It is clear that, just as the oil and gas sector has a set of rules and operational guidelines, agriculture needs to have its own. These will entail legislations at national and state levels, industry stipulations and expected outcomes. While we talk about the enormous potential and opportunities, which are not in doubt, we need to begin to examine the structural problems that need to be solved.
We need to be aware that players (some genuine, some not) in other sectors would begin an inroad to agriculture for its prospects. Many early players will take advantage of the relative absence of organisation in the sector to embark on innovation, while some others will pervert the situation to advantage. While the government at the centre is making a point of transforming agriculture and making it a business, the states need to join the train before it leaves the station. They need to fashion out their own variants of what the federal government is doing and think about ways of collaboration for effect.
The private sector, on the other hand, needs to be innovative, taking advantage of the various business development tools available and applicable across sectors, but mindful of the peculiarity of the Nigerian state and the diversity of the people, the varieties of geo-political and agro-ecological zones. Issues of job composition, commodity prices and seasonal variation, weather variation and rainfall, crop varieties and species, land tenure system, logistics and transportation, levels of value addition available, post-harvest wastage, financing options, agro-processing and value chain analysis need to be put in proper perspectives.
One of the early crises that will characterise the agricultural sector from the private sector end is that of capacity deficiency. The corollary to the deficiency scenario will be a burgeoning of charlatans, quacks and misguided operators masquerading as experts and consultants, dishing out well-scripted agribusiness proposals, paper-based bankable agro-investments, unproven feasibility reports, theoretical project management analyses, and all forms of flowery power point presentations that are mostly based on computer or internet-downloaded templates, having limited relevance in a Nigerian situation. It will be a hectic task sifting the real from the bogus in these circumstances and many prospective users of such ‘expertise’ will very likely throw some good money after bad services. With time, perhaps, the wheat will begin to emerge from the chaff, professionally speaking.
The agricultural sector is urgently in need of support in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and other forms of sectoral best practices, logistic support, infrastructure, extension services, price and pricing mechanisms, quality, traceability, packaging, processing technology, financing, and value chain development at both micro and micro-economic levels. These are important as pre-requisites for instilling confidence in investors, financiers, merchants and consumers. A bulk of what needs to be done here would require the private sector leadership.
Even at the governmental level, the private sector expertise will still find its relevance; which is why experts need to do proper analysis of needs and stakeholders in order to find appropriate entry points and relevant solutions where necessary. Modern agriculture requires a lot of information and communication technology (ICT) in various aspects of operations. The growing awareness and interests of youth in agriculture need to be considered. There is a great need for mechanisation in agriculture. Soft technologies, however, will find wide application in the sector, now and in the future.
A good number of prospects and challenges facing agriculture could be solved by developing softwares and apps of direct relevance to Nigerian situation. Geographic Information System (GIS), Global Positioning System (GPS) and other ICT solutions would be needed on land matters as there is an urgent need to delineate agricultural lands from lands for real estate development. This will help in no small way in reducing the conflicts and clashes associated with land matters, for instance.
Predictors of weather for agricultural purposes will need to be done as custom-made technologies applicable to agribusiness community. Nigeria still depends more or less on NIMET, which has more relevance for the aviation sector. The custom-made applications that could help in weather insurance will be beneficial for agricultural insurance salesmen selling insurance services to farmers who would otherwise be at the mercy of the vagaries of weather.
Mobile money is now a commonplace in the Nigerian banking industry. This will find a great use in agribusiness and will help overcome a lot of logistic and time challenges. Veritable platforms could be established to bring operators in various interrelated value chains together to make their tasks a lot easier and their business activities more rewarding. In agribusiness market information service, information generation and dissemination now offers a lot of sector-wide benefits that must be garnered. An example is the service offered by a group of young Nigerians operating, known as Novus Agro, based somewhere in Ogudu, Lagos State.
The initiative that successfully drove the e-wallet system of the past four years in agricultural subsidy was ICT-based. It enabled the public-private sector interface between all actors with minimal need for human-to-human contacts while businesses involving billions of naira were transacted all across Nigeria. The initiative had a great input of young Nigerians working with their Kenyan counterparts. The Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) is the national reference point for certifying agricultural export. Its online system of certifying exports that came on board about two years ago was put together by young Nigerian ICT professionals. The relatively obscure NAQS website attracted the attention of the counterpart organisation in Netherlands that sent representatives to Nigeria to ask questions. The Netherlands visitors confessed that it took them two years to come up with their own website whereas it took the Nigerians only six months to prepare the NAQS site. These two examples offer great hope for Nigerian ICT professionals as ready pool of intellectual resources we could draw upon when the need arises.
Opportunities exist for softwares on grades and standards, and warehouse receipt systems. The Nigerian Commodity Exchange and Africa Exchange Holdings (AFEX Nigeria) are examples of organisations (public or private) that need such applications for keeping reliable quantitative and qualitative data on agro-commodities in their warehouses. The Nigeria Expanded Trade and Transport initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a project intended to facilitate agribusiness investment on the Lagos-Kano and Jibiya corridor. This should provide incentive for discerning ICT experts on commodity movement tracking, just as that done by some international courier companies nowadays. They will help further in reducing post-harvest wastage linked to in-transit losses as in accidents and delays.
Experts in ICT need to study these areas of challenges that can easily be turned into opportunities and work with clients such as governments in various states in providing solutions that will increase the agricultural revenues of such states and boost their economies. The enormous business opportunities in agriculture will only be open to the discerning and the innovative as knowledge rather than brawn will drive the sector in the future. And Nigerians need to position themselves to make the most of these unfolding opportunities. While we will need some ideas from outside, much more will require a great deal of local knowledge to succeed. Real experts need to study the various ramifications of agriculture in order to properly fit into the sectoral matrix, to provide the much needed hope for the sector and the unfolding new economy.
Olukayode Oyeleye
Olukayode Oyeleye is the Special Adviser on Media to the Minister of Agriculture
