 |
| President Muhammadu Buhari |
The
pothole-ridden roads that connect Lagos, Nigeria’s bustling commercial
capital, with Adeniyi Bunmi’s leafy farm in southwestern Ogun state are
among the many challenges faced by the entrepreneur.
“You can’t
even drive in to an average farm,” said Bunmi, arguing that access to
his 150 hectare site, which was a dense forest until it was cleared by
bulldozers six years ago, is good compared with other rural areas.
The
poor transport infrastructure in Africa’s most populous nation is one
of the major obstacles in the way of President Muhammadu Buhari’s aim of
boosting agriculture and reducing the reliance on oil exports at a time
of low crude prices.
The pockmarked route between Lagos and
Bunmi’s farm alternates from tarmac to gravel and dirt tracks, making it
hard to transport produce ranging from plantain to pineapples to
clients in the city, a bumpy two-hour drive away.
But roads in the southwest are generally better than those in the north where the infrastructure is far worse.
Africa’s
biggest economy and top energy producer has been hammered by low crude
prices, since it relies on oil exports for around 70 percent of
government revenues. Buhari, who took office in May, has said a
strengthened agriculture sector would create jobs and reduce the
reliance on costly food imports.
“The petroleum we had depended on
for so long will no longer suffice,” he told an agrarian trade body
three months after taking office in May. “We campaigned heavily on
agriculture, and we are ready to assist as many as want to go into
agricultural ventures.”
But five months after Buhari took office,
his cabinet is yet to be sworn in, leaving him without an agriculture
minister to flesh out policy details.
A proposed $25 billion
infrastructure fund to invest in much-needed modernisation of road, rail
and power networks, announced by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on
Thursday is still at the planning stage.
Nigeria has tens of
millions of farmers, most of whom work on a subsistence basis and live
on less than $2 a day, making the warehouses, electricity access and
machinery needed to improve efficiency unattainable.
FOOD IMPORTS
The
resulting inefficiency explains why Nigeria produces 1.5 million tonnes
of tomatoes annually of which 45 percent perish. The inability of
farmers to feed a nation of 170 million people has led to an increasing
reliance on imported food.
Nigeria is among the world’s largest
importers of rice and the biggest buyer of U.S. wheat, while much of its
own fertile land lies fallow.
In 2012 it imported 2.3 million
tonnes of rice – a record high. Some 4.1 million tonnes of wheat was
brought into Nigeria in the same year – nearly double the amount
imported in 2000.
The rocketing food import bill, against a
backdrop of a weakening naira and strong dollar, has contributed to
consumer inflation rising to 9.4 percent year-on-year in September, its
highest level since February 2013.
Buhari has referred to the
rising cost of living as one of the motivations for reinvigorating an
agriculture sector that in the 1960s was the top source of employment
and, until recently, remained the biggest contributor to GDP.
Since
last year’s GDP rebasing calculation, agriculture has fallen behind the
services sector, making up 21 percent of Africa’s largest economy,
highlighting how far it has fallen since the oil boom of the 1970s
shifted priorities.
“It requires a lot of capital,” said Bunmi,
37, who used money from relatives to buy land incrementally over the
last six years and now employs 125 people.
“People don’t want to invest. They would rather invest in a business that would bring a product out very fast,” he said.
CORRUPTION
The
inability to secure funds leaves many farmers unable to take the steps
needed to move beyond subsistence farming, such as hiring bulldozers to
clear land for farming, building warehouse facilities and buying
tractors.
Nigeria’s farmers have received little help from
successive governments that vowed to support development, said Otunba
Oke, who chairs the Lagos branch of the All Farmers Association of
Nigeria
(AFAN).
“The government should assist with grants. The
government should work with banks to ensure more favourable interest
rate payments for farmers,” he said, adding that most farmers were
unable to meet the requirements to secure loans.
However, previous
efforts at government intervention have been undermined by corruption
and mismanagement, agriculture analyst Liborous Oshoma said, citing a
fertiliser scheme.
“People who weren’t farmers were given
fertiliser licences,” said Oshoma. “Fertiliser racketing was a big
problem in Nigeria,” he said, adding that many made a profit at the
expense of farmers.
“People are leaving agriculture in their
droves and looking for white collar jobs,” added Oshoma, who said
Buhari’s administration will have to overcome the widely held perception
that farmers work hard but remain poor.
Bunmi has an image on his
mobile phone of his sons, aged four and seven, digging on the farm. But
would he encourage them – and others – to follow in his footsteps?
“An average person will come into agric once they know the toil, the stress, the struggle will not go in vain,” he said.
Posts
