In spite of the recent export campaign by the Federal Government, Nigeria has failed to address the issue of logistics weaknesses in the supply value chain of agricultural commodities, which is vital for the successful operations of any export initiative.
According to experts, Nigeria can only realise its export potential and diversify its revenue through agriculture when agro commodity that are bulky can be easily transported at cheaper rates to reduce cost of production.
“Infrastructure impacts export competitiveness. If we do not do anything about our infrastructural gaps we would not get anywhere economically,” said Madu Obiora, former chairman, export group, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) told BusinessDay in a telephone response to questions.
Obiora said that the country do not have an effective cold chain infrastructure, stating that the government export drive can only be successful with adequate infrastructural facilities such as storage, good road networks amongst others.
“We need to activate various means of transportation to facilitate trade and competitiveness,” he said.
One of the greatest problems confronting rural farmers and communities in Nigeria is the absence of critical infrastructure such as ‘motorable’ roads. This is hindering market access for farmers in such communities who work assiduously to eke out a living from farming.
After few days of heavy rainfalls most farming areas and markets becomes totally impassable and this has continued to impact negatively on the prices of food items across the country.
“The roads are bad; it takes me two to three days to transport my yam produce from Benue (located in middle belt, of Nigeria) to Lagos (located in Southwest). I lost more than 300 tubers of yam on my last trip to Mile Twelve market in Lagos because the trailer got spoilt on the road and my yam produce was stolen since the trailer slept on the road for a night,” Godwin Apak a yam farmer in Benue state told BusinessDay.
This is the challenge most farmers in the rural communities face. Before the produce is transported out of the farm lands to places they can access roads to the market, most off their crops are lost in the process especially the perishable crops.
According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), high transport costs arising from the combination of scarce resources and poor road networks in rural Africa make parts of the rural economy only semi-open.
Similarly, Nigeria’s rail infrastructures have remained poor despite efforts of past and present administrations to improve the rail infrastructures across the country.
“The rail infrastructures in Nigeria are poor. The logistics to facilitate export are lacking in the country and this is what has driven export growth in most economies of the world,” AfricanFarmer Mogaji, chief executive officer, X-Ray Farms Consulting, said.
“We need to revive our rail infrastructures for easy movement of bulky agricultural commodities from the farms to the nearest seaports or airport facilities,” Mogaji said.
Also, cargo facilities for export are at a poor state despite billions invested by the Federal Government to drive export of agro-allied products.
A recent visit by BusinessDay to five designated airports in the country, which include Lagos, Uyo, Akure, Port Harcourt and Owerri shows that only Lagos and Port Harcourt currently import and export cargoes to various countries, while others barely function as passenger airports and this is because there are no infrastructure on ground to facilitate cargo export in these airports.
The provision of good road network, rail infrastructures and cargo facility are pre-requisites for enabling Nigeria stimulate economic growth and to reach the targets for economic diversification and poverty alleviation by 2020 as well as promoting domestic market activity and market integration, and facilitating and developing access to these markets.
