Recent media reports indicate that rural farmers in Nigeria are increasingly losing access to their farmlands as real estate developers expand deeper into the countryside. This development poses a direct threat to food security in a country where inflation has only been kept in check through the opening of borders to rice and other grains, alongside coordinated policy efforts.
Nigeria continues to sustain itself through food importation. Should that lifeline be disrupted, food prices would surge. This reality was laid bare when former President Muhammadu Buhari closed the country’s borders in 2019, triggering steep price increases and supply shocks.
The case for land reform
The Nigerian government may soon find it has no alternative but to embrace robust land reform and redistribution. Though politically difficult, such reform could unlock a level of development that has long eluded the country.
Real estate is undeniably lucrative and remains a booming sector. Indeed, the anticipated rebased GDP figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) suggest that real estate is now the third-largest sector, overtaking oil and gas. While this is a sign of diversification, it must not come at the cost of agricultural land—land with the potential to generate significant foreign exchange if properly harnessed.
Agriculture and Industrialisation
“If you wish for industrialisation, prepare to develop agriculture.” This maxim, commonly attributed to Michael Lipton, the British development economist renowned for his work on rural poverty and land reform, remains as relevant today as when it was first articulated.
Agriculture cannot thrive without the basic factors of production: land, labour, capital and, most importantly, deliberate government policy to support its growth. Any agricultural strategy that ignores these fundamentals will falter.
Lessons from East Asia
East Asian economies such as South Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan fought their way to prosperity through smallholder farming. Central to their success were sweeping land reforms implemented in the aftermath of the Second World War. Joe Studwell, in How Asia Works, details how these governments restructured land ownership to empower rural families, creating the foundation for agricultural surpluses and subsequent industrialisation.
Historical parallels in South Africa
History offers sobering lessons. Consider the story of Stephen Sonjica, described in Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s Why Nations Fail as a self-made farmer who rose from humble beginnings in South Africa. With savings, he acquired land, oxen and farming tools, embodying the promise of upward mobility through agriculture.
However, the Land Act of 1913 reversed the fortunes of Sonjica and countless other smallholders. Within a few decades, policies designed to favour European settlers stripped Africans of land, restricting them to a mere 13 percent of the territory while a white minority, about 20 per cent of the population, controlled 87 percent. The result was entrenched poverty and a deepening of structural inequality.
The importance of fair land distribution
This pattern is not unique to South Africa. In pre-reform China, landlords and wealthy peasants, less than 10 percent of the rural population, controlled 70 to 80 percent of the land. Similar disparities were found in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea until their governments stepped in to redistribute land more equitably.
Studwell recounts how Tang Dynasty China operated an agricultural bureaucracy that allocated and rotated farming plots among households, ensuring fair access to resources while retaining state ownership of the land. The result was a system that protected rural livelihoods and boosted productivity.
Land distribution and future growth
Klaus Deininger, one of the world’s leading authorities on land policy, has spent decades analysing data to show how land distribution shapes economic performance. Using United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) surveys, Deininger found that only one significant developing country has achieved a long-term growth rate above 2.5 percent with a highly unequal land distribution.
Nigeria and much of Sub-Saharan Africa are still grappling with the challenge of engineering prosperity. As Acemoglu and Robinson caution, “you can’t engineer prosperity.” Yet you can create conditions for it, starting with secure access to land for those who cultivate it.
Feeding the Nation Before building industry
While the drive to industrialise and build a digital economy is essential, the inability to feed one’s population is a far greater weakness. “States beginning their economic development never have enough foreign exchange,” Studwell notes, “and one of the easiest ways to fritter it away is to spend more than is necessary on imported food.”
East Asia offers a clear lesson, agricultural yields soared after land reforms, generating foreign exchange that was then channelled into technology and manufacturing.
If Nigeria’s much-touted ambition to make agriculture “sexy” is to be realised, rural families must be protected. They need fair access to land, without which neither food security nor sustainable development can be achieved.
