Over the years, successive governments have paid lip service to developing the agricultural sector.
The poor attention to developing the sector has hurt the economy and the cost of food. In the past years, for instance, the nation resolved to import food from Thailand, India, and Indonesia.
The Federal Government (FG), in 2015, later initiated levies to ban the imports, as a way of promoting local production. In April 2023, the tariff on rice, wheat and 190 other items was further raised. Yet, the upward tariff review was done without corresponding budgetary allocation to the sector.
Findings revealed that warehouses were strategically built a few metres from the land borders in neighbouring francophone countries such as Niger Republic in a bid to smuggle agricultural commodities into Nigeria.
Incidentally, the staple foods are such that the nation has immense potential to grow. For instance, 2021 Data from Statista described Nigeria as the world’s largest producer of cassava, also the largest grower of yam globally, followed by Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. However, it is worse that a war-ridden country like Ukraine, on March 4, 2024, had to donate 25,000 tonnes of wheat to Nigeria.
Multiple stakeholders kicked against the situation, blaming the Nigerian government for failing to develop the sector truly. Meanwhile, official data shows that over 70 per cent of Nigerians are involved in agriculture at a subsistence level. Mechanised farming also has the lowest ebb. While it is true that Nigeria can grow its food, this implies that it could also empower the unemployed, mainly if it adopts mechanised farming and improved farming methodologies.
Figure 2 Bags of rice smuggled into Nigeria. Photo Credit: Ships and Ports.
On 15 February, President Bola Tinubu admitted during an emergency meeting with state governors from the 36 states on the prevailing food insecurity in the country but ruled out imports. He said the nation would continue with home-grown food production instead of continuing imports.
“I will not establish a price control board, nor will I approve the importation of food,” he said. “Instead, we will support our farmers with schemes encouraging them to cultivate food for the nation.”
How it started
In July 2003, the Nigerian government signed an agreement as part of efforts to increase food production, fight extreme poverty and create sustainable jobs. The commitment, known as the African Union Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security, was for AU member nations, of which Nigeria is a signatory, to allocate at least 10 per cent of their annual budgets to agriculture and rural development.
The pact is recognized as the AU Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). But, more than a decade later, Nigeria has not implemented the agreement, causing untold hardship on the citizens.
While the policy came into effect during the administration of the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, successive governments have repeatedly failed in the commitment. Several initiatives on agriculture were set in place to transform the agricultural sector, but indications showed there were more policies without actions. Besides, where considerable efforts were made, the nation experienced policy summersaults as successive administrations failed to sustain initial efforts.
For instance, in 2010, former President Goodluck Jonathan initiated the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA). The initiative was led by the current President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, who, until his new appointment, was the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in Nigeria.
The thrust of his policy was to suspend food importation and grow crops with value-addition while considering the agricultural potentials of respective states nationwide. That is, Adesina was not only interested in growing foods but moved to ensure states that could produce a particular farm commodity such as cassava, were provided the needed support. These were implemented through the Staple Crops Processing Zones (SCPZ). Local farmers were also offered farm inputs such as fertilisers, and seeds at a subsidised rate through the Growth Enhancement Support(GES) scheme.
Though the former Minister could not achieve the Maputo declaration, the whole effort stopped when he left in 2015. Audu Ogbeh succeeded him, followed by other public officials, until the current Minister, Mohammad Mahmood, was sworn in in 2023.
Food shortage, leading cause of malnutrition in Northern Nigeria
Beyond extreme poverty, findings have shown that food shortage has gradually caused a rise in children’s malnourishment. According to data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), about 2 million Nigerian children account for the world‘s second-largest in terms of children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). It is made worse as the situation is contributing to child morbidity and mortality in the country.
Poor political will, policy inconsistency reasons for food insecurity, rise in food price
The founder, Community Action for Food Security, Azeez Salawu, identified bureaucratic bottlenecks among ministries and inconsistencies in policy implementation as the main factors for the non-implementation of the Maputo declaration agreement. He faulted the poor political will of the government, stressing that the policymakers were docile in their responsibilities towards ensuring food sufficiency.
“I think the failure for me is due to distinct factors. The major one is the challenge of implementing some of our policies. We have beautiful policies, but inconsistencies in policy implementation are a great challenge.
He added that non-implementation of the policy caused poor investment in the agriculture sector. He said this led to poor infrastructure developments, access to inputs, and vulnerability to climate change.
According to him, domestic food production has not matched up with population growth, thus resulting in food imports and higher prices.
“The vulnerable populations are the most affected. There is no current policy, but the previous ones were robust enough…the challenge remains poor implementation.”
However, Salawu advised stakeholders to implement the right-to-food bill passed into law by the past government in alignment with the prevailing challenge in Nigeria. He added that solving the food insecurity problem would require a comprehensive approach.
“Aside from fulfilling the commitment to the Maputo declaration, we need to increase investments in agricultural research and extension services intentionally. Also, improving access to finance and inputs, infrastructure facilities such as irrigation, storage facilities and post-harvest engagements.”
The Head of Department, Business Administration at Oduduwa University, Nigeria, Omolade Adeyemi attributed the failure of food security to the ruling elites’ lack of political will. He said though the 10 percent commitment was similar to other pacts, such as the 20 percent proposed allocation to the education sector, the government needs to demonstrate seriousness in addressing the people’s basic needs.
While appealing to the FG to revisit the policy and commence immediate implementation, Adeyemi disclosed that aside from year 2008, when FG committed 12 per cent of the budgetary allocation to Agriculture, other years have been less than 10 per cent.
“The failure of the FGN to commit to the 10 per cent Maputo declaration has no doubt greatly contributed to food shortage in the country.
“Some Agro-allied industries have even folded up due to no supply of farm produce for further processing, and this has led to laying off of staff and loss of forex because the whole of West Africa is our market.”
