Nigeria has a unique position in Africa’s food system as a country with the largest population and economy in Africa.
To be able to sustainably feed its growing population and to continue to play its role as the giant of Africa by providing food to so many countries in its immediate neighborhood and as well remain a veritable market to all of Africa through its role as the most important player in AfCFTA it needs to address the following issues:
Embark on the mass education of smallholder farmers (SHFs) and potential agriprenuers on the need to produce food all-year-round by embracing Science, Technology & innovation,Climate smart Agricultural production, sustainable value addition, distribution, marketing etc.
The country also needs to address the issues around the provision of sustainable energy, stemming of insecurity, provision of adequate mechanization, provide sustainable subsidy on agricultural inputs and the evolution of a private sector led veritable commodity exchanges etc. And make sufficient effort to make all the institutions with cross cutting relations with agriculture to work efficiently.
These institutions include, the Nigerian customs, Department of Quarantine, SON, NAFDAC, Trade & Investment, Export promotion, environment, power, science and technology, the CBN, research institutes, food safety Centres of excellence, NALDA, NADF etc.
The investment necessary to ensure the seamless attainment of the aforementioned milestones may appear daunting but absolutely necessary and thankfully doable with sufficient political WILL.
The prevailing circumstances in Nigeria call for concerted effort from the federal government, the Subnational governments, the private sector and in fact all Nigerians to address the real issues otherwise things will continue to be difficult for all of us.
The highly invaluable resource of Agriculture available to us will be better harnessed by deliberately setting up Agricultural Intelligence Centres( AIC) in all the six geopolitical zones to fast track the attainment of food sufficiency in the relevant staples in the zones and then setting up Agribusiness Incubation Networks (AIN) to train or educate Nigerians of the immense potential of creating mass employment in the agricultural economy far in excess of any other sector in Nigeria.
Arc Kabir Ibrahim FNIA, is the National President, All farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), President, Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG) and Chairman BOT, National Agricultural Foundation of Nigeria (NAFN).