Rethinking Nigeria’s approaches to agriculture business investment

Nigeria is a country on 923,768 square kilometres of land. Over 65 percent of this land is arable land, which is good for agriculture, but most of the agriculture land-holdings in developing nations are small and cannot sustain modern agriculture practices. Sustainable agriculture business requires large land-holding! Agriculture business or agribusiness is the practice of enterprises, industry and the field of study of value chains in agriculture and in the bio-economy of the ecosystem. It is also called bio-business or bio-enterprise or agric-enterprise. It is agriculture practice on strictly commercial principles. The agriculture practices of developing nations in Africa are: Angola – cassava, corn, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, soy, bananas, coffee, rice, vegetables, and fruits; Botswana – beans, sunflower, groundnuts, wheat, cotton, lucerne, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, cabbage, spinach etc; and Cote D’Ivoire – coffee, rubber, cotton, palm oil and bananas.

Other agriculture produce of Africa are: Egypt – wheat, cotton, corn, rice, dairy products etc; Ghana – yams, grains, cocoa, oil palms, kola nuts, and timber; Kenya – maize, sugarcane, tea, coffee, and horticulture; Nigeria – beans, rice, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum Arabic, kola nut, cocoa, maize, melon, millet, palm kernels, oil palms, plantain, rice, rubber, yams etc; and South Africa – barley, maize, oats, sorghum and wheat. Though there are subsistence and commercial agriculture practices in Africa, the former is still mostly practised as a means of survival. The present level of consumption of foods and the unemployment rates in Africa means that agriculture cannot be practised at subsistence level if there will be food security and adequate farm produce for exportation and income generation. Mechanised farming is the only way to develop agriculture in Africa.

In Nigeria, the performance of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter of 2023 was driven by the service sector, which recorded a growth of 3.98 percent and contributed 56.55 percent to the aggregate GDP. The agriculture sector grew by 2.10 percent, from the growth of 2.05 percent recorded in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Agriculture sector in Nigeria can be the best as in Ukraine and help the nation save money spent on imported foods. Planning is the first rule of success.

In the world of business, as in life, the famous quote by Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, USA, holds true: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” This statement captures a fundamental truism that cannot be overstated, especially in these modern days of fast-paced and competitive business environments. For agriculture to compete successfully with other business ventures, it must be well articulated. Government must be interested in agriculture development before agribusiness can be successful among the people. Agricultural land must be located and preserved in areas that will not be too far from where people are living. There must be infrastructure like tarred or paved roads, electricity, water and security of lives and properties in the agriculture estates. Lastly, there must be tripartite relationships between agribusiness practitioners, financial institutions and the government!

The land-holding of each of the agribusiness men and women should be 5,000 hectares (50,000 square metres) of fenced land with blocks and wire mesh. This will be used for the farming area, the residences of workers and storage facilities. To facilitate economies of scale in the area of farm machines, the government must plan these large scale farms to be near to each other. Agriculture employs more than half of Africa’s workforce, and smallholder farmers constitute 60 percent of the population in developing African countries. Strengthening smallholder production will therefore play a central role in African development, more food security and resilience in Africa. African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) has a big role to play in ensuring successful agriculture business in Africa. The African Continental Free Trade Area is a free trade area encompassing most African states.

AfCTA was established on March 21, 2018 by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which has 43 parties and another 11 signatories, making it the largest free-trade area by number of member states after the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the largest in population and geographic size, spanning 1.3 billion people across Africa – the second largest continent. Despite that Africa produces all the principal grains – corn, wheat, millet and rice – inter-trade in these products between African states is not encouraging. A lot of these grains are still imported from overseas countries by most African states making it difficult to have sustainable agribusiness in the African states producing them. Storage of these grains by African farmers is a big challenge! The Nation newspaper of 18 April, 2024, reported that “Poultry farmers, suppliers, retailers lament rise in price of eggs” in Nigeria. This will be the fifth year in succession that poultry products will experience a sharp increase towards festivals (Christmas and Easter) and the Nigeria poultry farmers cannot respond.

There is still very high potential for agribusiness development in Africa, especially in Nigeria with a population of over two hundred and twenty million people! Food is the first basic need of man and any country that toys with food security toys with national security! A hungry man is an angry man. Governments at the state level have more roles to play in ensuring that there is sustainable agriculture practice in Nigeria. There must be urban farms in the cities like Ikeja GRA, Ikoyi and Victoria Island. In these urban farms, fruits like pawpaw, mangoes, oranges, and pineapples, cucumber and vegetables like onions, tomatoes and peppers will be cultivated. Anything short of this and a situation where everywhere in a city is built up with houses in the midst of food inadequacy is a sign of greed and should not be allowed in the modern world.

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