Industrialist Tasks Govt to Change Tide For Agriculture to Save the Nation

An industrialist, John Isemede has called on the Nigerian government to change the tide in terms of policy, budgeting and implementation so that Agriculture can save the nation.

Isemede who is a former Director General of Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) made this submission in an exclusive chat with the Editor of Gentechnews, adding that Dr Adesina’s position on Agriculture is apt when he posited that Agriculture is the way to go if we want to fund the 2022 budget.

He pointed out that “we are no one producer or producers of about 10-15 Agricultural items but no value addition; no chains to run the sector with stakeholders. We see only idle or empty silos, no warehouse houses or container yards into the ports to support export. No rail links to Agriculture centres; no company producing tools/ chemicals that can go round. No commodity board but commodity exchange (broken links).”

The former  DG NACCIMA lamented that we are the number one producer of yam in the World (73%) of World total but unable to export a tuber.

“What is the problem that we cannot develop markets like China town concept using the Diaspora? What of Cassava 40% that we are producing and cannot export garri but are importing simple starch.

“Secondly, why are we still exporting cocoa beans, cashew, Shea butter etc; in raw form after over 500 years with the West and we are thinking of jobs creation with imports, balance of trade and payments where the one USD of 25pence in 1972 or 50kobo in 1980 is almost N500 to just one USD”, he asked.

Isemede expressed his concern why government  do not set targets for the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, (MDAs) because people are tired of infighting, show of power at meetings with mandate  and no commensurate output to the Organised Private Sector (OPS) set up to assist and regulate.

According to him, there has been a melee of supremacy by some and grammar at seminars that have not added one per cent to the economy from 1985 to date when most of them were set up to assist on quality, origin, payments on our Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) dreams.

He declared that Agriculture is the way to go looking at our environment, resources, manpower, the location of Nigeria at almost the centre of the world.  He cited the law of comparative/ absolute advantages in our Ordinary Level Economics books to have provided the answers from the days of Adam Smith in the 18th century.

He explained that looking at the 2022 budget on our hands now, what is located to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, (FMARD) we know is not in line with the position of our AfDB boss, Dr Adesina on Agriculture in Africa.

He posited that the allocations to Agriculture in the last 20 years are often between 2-4% of our total budgets and we want to feed a Nation of over 200million with 2% of budget allocation.

He recalled that the Maputo Agreement under Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) position on Food Safety (To fight hunger) in Africa which we also signed into in August 2003 in Mozambique was 12% and not 2% of the annual budget to Agric and all the Parastatals under Agric Ministry.

He  noted that Brazil that sends sugar to us  has  more than 100 universities on Agric matters alone but in Nigeria we have just three in Makurdi, Owerri and Akure reporting to the Federal Ministry of Education and not the Federal Ministry of Agric  because there are no proper alignments.

He wonder if the nation is going to continue the usual importation spree of food, border closure in one form or the other; ban of certain items in total contradiction to some of the agreements like the ECOWAS Free movement; AfCFTA on the Bamako convention (free movement/ Transits); the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on trade facilitation and the Food Aid after over 60 years of independence.

He quoted the submission of the AfDB president, Dr. Adesina thus: “What is left for us is to close ranks and take Agriculture as a business and not a dirty job.”

Isemede stated Nigeria has over 250 Universities  with over 200 faculties of Agric in the over 250 campuses  with the numerous Research Centres without targets and getting the contributions of    donors / support / inputs from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and International Foodservice Distributors Association (IFDA) etc.

He advocated that there was the need to change the tide so that Agric can save the nation, adding that just mere looking at the value chain loop, we can produce food, raw materials for our industries and meet the target of 10million jobs set by Mr President.

According to Prof. Ali Mazuri, “A country without food safety is not an independent Nation,” he added.