How Inconsistent Agricultural Policies Spiked Food Insecurity

Many Nigerians are falling into the hunger net almost on a daily basis, writes Gilbert Ekugbe in this piece that blames inconsistent agriculture policies by successive governments for Nigeria’s looming food crisis.

Nigeria is currently ranked 103rd out of 121 countries according to the Global Hunger Index (GHI). With this situation, Nigeria is just 18 places above Yemen, the country tagged with the highest hunger rate.

The World Food Price (WFP) in its Hunger hotspots report in May 2022 said that Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Yemen remained at the “highest alert” of countries with catastrophic food security conditions. The report added Afghanistan and Somalia as new entries into this worrisome class since the previous hotspots report was released in January 2022.

This development goes to show that Nigeria is not doing enough to put the nation on the right path to food security. With the Russia-Ukraine conflict compounding the already plagued agricultural sector, the managers of Nigerian economy must as a matter of urgency dot the “I”s and cross the “T”s in the country’s food policies and implementations strategies.

No doubt, Nigeria has the potential to become a major food exporter on the African continent. Between 1950 and late 1960s, trade in agricultural produced such as cocoa, cotton and groundnuts, among others, generated foreign exchange for the country to kick-start its infrastructure development.

However, the oil boom era of the 1970s put this advancement on a reverse gear and agriculture steadily declined to the extent that Nigeria resorted to food imports to supplement the low agricultural output in the country.

Stakeholders and experts in the country’s agriculture sector identified poor implementation of laudable agriculture policies as actually the bane of agricultural development. They believed that all policies formulated by the government were targeted towards the development of the sector, but implementing these policies to the latter still remained the greatest challenge hindering any meaningful growth in the sector.

From 1972 to 1985, the federal government introduced five agricultural policies that included the National Accelerated Food Production Programme (NAFPP) 1972-1973; Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) 1976-1980; Green Revolution Programme (GRP) 1981-1983 and Go Back to Land Programme between 1983 and 1985.

But just like these policies looked good on paper, they lacked input from agricultural stakeholders who are the major actors in the sector.

According to reports, farmers, pastoralists, rural dwellers and other key actors in the agricultural value chain were mostly not carried along at the formulation and implementation of agricultural development policies and initiatives.

Nigeria’s Agric endowments

In the early 1960s, Nigeria was the world’s largest palm oil producer with global market share of 43 per cent, but today, it is ranked as the fifth largest producer with less than 2.0 per cent of total global market production of 74.08 million metric tonnes.

Even Malaysia that depended on Nigeria for its palm oil needs had since surpassed Nigeria and has emerged the world largest producer of palm oil. Malaysia started with palm tree seedlings it acquired from Nigeria.

Reports revealed that in 1966, Malaysia and Indonesia surpassed Nigeria as the world’s largest palm oil producers, noting that both countries combined produce approximately 80 per cent of total global output, with Indonesia alone responsible for over half i.e. 53.3 per cent of global output.

According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), if Nigeria had maintained its market dominance in the palm oil industry, the country would have been earning approximately $20 billion annually from the cultivation and processing of palm oil as at today.

Cocoa was the main thrust of economic development in Nigeria’s Western Region, which had about 350,000 cocoa farmers.   In the 1950s, Nigeria’s share of world cocoa trade increased from roughly 14 per cent to 18 per cent.

 In the mid-1960s, the volume of cocoa export grew from approximately 100,000 tonnes to 229,000 tonnes yearly from 1963 to 1967 period. The export of cocoa grew at a compound average growth rate of about 7.0 per cent per year in the ten years between 1956 and 1967. By the early 1960s, the production of cocoa had risen by about 80 per cent above the previous 1950-51 high following the acreage increase in cocoa cultivation of about 15 per cent.

The increase was attributed to the widespread use of insecticides, fungicides, improved seedlings and other improvements that had been seriously promoted through subsidies, credit schemes and extension services by the western regional marketing board.

The neglect of the agricultural sector and almost total dependence on oil export has been a disaster for the country’s economy. If Nigeria had prioritised sound and sustainable policies, its market share in palm oil, cocoa, groundnut, and cotton, it would be earning today at least $10 billion per year from these commodities

Groundnut pyramids in Kano

The history of groundnut in Nigeria started as far back as 1912. Then most farmers were encouraged by high economic returns from groundnut and well organised marketing of the crop. The groundnut pyramids, which used to be the pride of Kano State played a vital role in the economy of Nigeria’s First Republic. Apart from being a dependable source of income for the nation, the pyramid also served as a tourist attraction site where people travel from far and wide to marvel at the monumental piece.

Regrettably, over the years, the groundnut pyramids disappeared into thin air. Reports have it that the pyramids were said to have been invented by a famous businessman in the region, Alhassan Dantata. But such an innovation was not institutionalised by successive governments over the years. Since then, many ministers of Agriculture have come and gone with no blueprint to revive or emulate the initiative that could have made Nigeria the highest exporter of groundnut or other agro commodities to the world.

Way forward

The most effective way to improve the lives of millions in poverty is to support agricultural development. Transforming a country’s agriculture sector will create jobs, raise incomes, reduce malnutrition and kick start the economy on a path to middle-income growth. Managers of the Nigerian economy must focus on the changes that are most likely to kick-start rural economic growth by identifying goals in a limited number of crop and livestock value chains, cross cutting agriculture enablers such as lower transportation costs or access to irrigation and specific geographies.

Nigeria must also begin to focus on value and on productivity of row crops rather than opportunities for high value crops, downstream processing and livestock. Successful agricultural transformation plans give farmers the opportunity to raise their household incomes.

Again, stakeholders have reechoed the fact that the success of any agricultural transformation relied on how well millions of smallholders and small medium sized enterprises can be helped to change farming practices as quickly and effectively as possible. Nigeria must as a matter of urgency deploy the use of change agents to gain the trust of farmers.

These change agents are people who farmers can interact with regularly to help change their farming practices. Change in agricultural systems require multiple parallel advancements such as improvements in agricultural extension and seed systems would increase farmers’ productivity and most importantly, approaching transformations with an investor mind-set is critical to the success of kick-starting agricultural transformations, coordination among government donors and civil society is vital, but also equally important from the start to plan for private sector engagement.