Enterprise Issues
With Siaka Momoh
This piece was first published in Non-Oil Digest in 2017. Siaka Momoh was publisher and editor of the magazine.
This business needs rethinking. Why not? Go back to history, you will get the message. History, yes – history of creation. Remember the Garden of Aden. Remember Adam and Eve, the first man and woman whom God created and placed in the garden and asked to cultivate it, and keep it. It is therefore very clear that it was the first business that God, the creator of Heaven and Earth established.
Remember also that God created four rivers in the garden – Pison, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates, for irrigation. Or when we talk of livestock, which is agriculture too – recall David who was feeding his father’s sheep at Bethlehem from where he came to fight Goliath. These and other references to agribusiness in the Holy Bible, and the Holy Quran as well, manifest the importance of agriculture in an economy – they tell us that agribusiness was in existence at the origin of human race.
Or imagine a world without food. What is the consequence of this? Surely the result will be end of human race.
Take a look at these facts too: We have had four economies since the world that we know of now came to be. These include, Hunters and Gatherers Economy, Agricultural Economy, Industrial Economy and Knowledge Economy (ICT). We may however group the first and second economies as one and take it that we have had three economies to date.
These economies, in silos, are of no use to us. Knowledge economy is big business; but it derives its intimidating valuable size from its linkage to the economies listed herein. Rethinking agriculture comes in here. Agriculture is a strong base for industrialization – recall food processing and the usefulness of a chain of its products that are raw materials to industries –agro-based industries.
Nigeria agriculture facts (in 2017)
Historical significance of agriculture apart, available data showing agriculture potentials, showing deficits in food supply, call for urgent drive to boost food production. The facts: Nigeria has 80 million hectares of arable land blessed with good, fertile soil and a climate that supports growing a wide variety of food and cash crops; our millions of smallholder farmers cannot produce enough food for the country. As a result of this our annual food import bill estimate is US$5 billion; going by current trend in forex status, with a CBN exchange rate of N305 – N307.5 to a dollar, Nigeria food import bill will amount to N1.53 trillion (21.6%) of Nigeria’s 2017 budget. Wait a minute: If we go by the parallel market figure of N435 to a dollar, the food import bill will be N2.17 trillion(30.08% of the 2017 budget); in Nigeria, there is a 20.14 million metric tonnes deficit across 13 crops alone and 60 million poultry birds deficit, according to Federal Ministry of Agriculture.
This is troubling. It was therefore apt that BusinessDay was bothered about this and so brought stakeholders together at its Agribusiness and Food Security Summit 2017 in Lagos, to brainstorm on this national headache.
Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development Heineken Lokpobiri, who presented the keynote address, said the timing of the event was strategic and that the opportunity to rethink agriculture “rests on all of us”. He lamented “Nigeria is the only country in the world that is not taking advantage of its population”.
The United Nations put Nigeria’s population at about 200 million; Bureau of Statistics puts it at 192 million; it is estimated that by 2050 Nigeria’s population will hit 450 million. Lokpobiri is right – this growing population must be fed (recall we already have food deficit) and the large population is large consumer market which translates into investment opportunities. So in agreement with Lokpobiri, we must start now if we must achieve food security; the journey to peace in Nigeria must start with agriculture; we must substitute petro-dollar with agro-dollar.
How do we go about this? The answer: Cheap funding for farming; energy availability (particularly for the value chain); good rural road network and affordable transportation; cheap inputs supply; mechanized farming; extensive research; and right policies. Good enough, the agric minister gave us hope on some of these.
It was heart-warming that Professor Ruerd Ruben, Research Coordinator, Food Security Agricultural Economics Institute of Wageningen University, the Netherlands, said there was “an intricate network of producers and processors in agro-economy” and that there was “need to bring network together”. He was apparently pointing at the deficiency of this requirement in Nigerian agro-economy. He argued, “The agro-logistics must be right. There must be a good link between producers, processors, supermarkets and consumers.”
This is the issue. This is where the rethinking of agriculture takes off from. It is agric for business – agribusiness – one that involves the entire value chain in agriculture – from the farmgate to the table.
