With the dawning of the new era of low oil prices, it has become clear that Nigeria can no longer rely on foreign exchange from oil exports to power its economy’s engines. Attention is slowly shifting to other possible anchors. Agriculture is the most obvious of the alternatives available to the country, as it seeks to diversify its revenue base. The Federal Government seems to recognise this as well: it recently launched a policy roadmap, The Green Alternative, which it expects will help put things in place for the agricultural sector to live up to its full potential.
The focus on export promotion for Nigeria’s agricultural products, especially in the case of food, should not make us come away with the impression that Nigeria has all its domestic food needs sought out. In fact, there is a stunningly huge gap in food supply in the country. The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, alluded to this when he spoke at the inauguration of The Green Alternative in Abuja on Monday, 15 August. He said that Nigeria spends a whopping sum of $22 billion (₦7 trillion) annually on imports of such food items as wheat, rice, fish and poultry products. The minister agreed with the generally held opinion that this is a problem for Nigeria- the country could be in harm’s way if supplies from without plummet (for any conceivable reason).
A lot of food is being produced in Nigeria. But not enough, it appears. For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization says that Nigeria is “one of the largest producers of rice in Africa, and simultaneously one of the largest rice importers in the world”, as well as the continent’s leading consumer of the grain. As for livestock, it reckons that about 30 percent of live animals slaughtered in Nigeria are imported. There are also deficits in the supply of fish, although it contributes no less than 3 percent of the country’s GDP. Although some of this is due to post-harvest loss and storage, there is still a considerable absence of production capacity in many of these sub-sectors.
While the Ministry of Agriculture tries to make its new roadmap work, Nigerians could put a positive spin on the scramble for a green shelter from the effects of collapsing oil prices, by taking advantage of the unmet demand for food. We might not always have bullish markets for the banks, or sky high prices for light sweet crude, but we will always be in need of food. And, as business people know, meeting constant needs yields constant revenue flows, ceteris paribus.