Agriculture. In Nigeria - The Way forward (My Thoughts)

The Federal Government of Nigeria has various agricultural financing schemes which are however bedevilled by "Nigerian" challenges.  Good policy, bad implementation. Small holder farmers lack collateral for accessing the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme which requires minimum asset of N50m.

Farmers in Nigeria

Small scale agriculture has become largely feminised due to rural urban drift with most men leaving their families to go and "hustle". The "Abokis" we have in Lagos are young men who are supposed to be gainfully employed on large scale mechanised farms back home.

International Development partners need to channel development aid to fund the gathering of primary data which is needed for decision making. The agri business agenda of people like Akin Adesina will only thrive when there is access to banking facilities in rural areas. How can we talk of agri business without banking facilities? There is a very urgent need for data gathering at the state level.

Many states in Nigeria are not economically viable. This is where development aid will have the most impact. For example, what percentage of rice farmers in Taraba or Niger State are female? Lack of sex aggregated data remains a major problem in channeling funds to the areas of maximum impact. Women NGOs need to lead this effort.

The Bank of Agriculture (BOA) is supposed to give out N100,000 loans to cassava farmers after a 6 month moratorium. Many of these farmers have never had access to these loans. Even those who managed to access the loans still have their cassava in the ground because of lack of market outlets. Cassava glut occurs every 3yrs due to its life cyle. Excess supply,lower price, poor prod, high price, high production.

This is an example of just one crop. Think of instances of multiple crops, both cash and staple, and you would see that this method of agricultural production is simply not sustainable.

Nigeria needs a new model.