By Chinyere Anyanwu, [email protected]
Nigeria’s agricultural sector, comprising four major activity areas, namely crop production, livestock, forestry, and fishing, is one of the largest contributors to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) after the industry, services, and oil sectors. Between 2023 Q1 and 2024 Q3, the agricultural sector’s contribution to the country’s GDP reveals a sector that is recording gradual growth while holding the potential to make Nigeria a food-secure nation as well as grow the country’s economy.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the crop production sub-sector contributed N47,779,284.618 to the GDP in 2023, while in the third quarter of 2024, the sub-sector contributed N16,418,579.568. In the second quarter of 2023, the agricultural sector generated 21 percent of the GDP, with the largest contribution coming from crop production, which accounted for nearly 19 percent of the total GDP. In 2023 Q3, agriculture contributed 29.31 percent to the GDP. 2023 Q4’s agricultural sector’s contribution to the GDP was 24.65 percent, a figure that is lower than the third quarter figure of 29.31 percent. In 2024 Q1, agriculture’s contribution to the country’s GDP stood at 17.22 percent. The overall GDP from agriculture in the third quarter of 2024 increased to N5,763,385.21 from N4,135,134.19 in the second quarter. By the end of the third quarter of 2024, agriculture had earned about N13,178,149.66 for the GDP.
A common trend in the performance of the agricultural sector in its contribution to the GDP within the period under review shows that crop production, followed by the livestock subsectors, remains the highest contributors to the GDP. This, stakeholders say, is largely due to increasing population and urbanization resulting in higher demands for the products.
Agriculture, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “remains the foundation of the Nigerian economy, providing livelihoods for most Nigerians and generating millions of jobs, whereas the wealth generated by oil reaches a limited number of people.”
The sector’s growth can be expedited, according to the National President of the Agricultural Commodity Consumer Association, Dr. Kenechukwu Aloefuna, if the government becomes intentional about reorganizing the ministry in charge of agriculture and adequately funding the sector. Dr. Aloefuna, while reacting to the performance of the agricultural sector as regards its contribution to the GDP, said, “We are lagging behind. I don’t think there is any field within the agricultural sector that is getting any funding at all from the government. No single intervention.
“Government created the National Agriculture Development Fund but they have done nothing in the last eight months. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has stopped full intervention in the agricultural sector. Farmers’ security threat has increased, and Boko Haram and bandits are having a field day.”
He lamented the cutthroat costs of food items, especially rice, noting that “a bag of rice is selling for N90,000, which means the government has no grip on the system because they are not supporting anybody. They don’t even know the EOP (Economics of Production) of food, so you have a government that does not understand agriculture. They have declared a presidential emergency on agriculture and food security, but it is lip service they have paid to the sector.”
Dr. Aloefuna, who called for a change of guard at the agriculture ministry, said, “The truth is that we don’t have a Minister of Agriculture. Whoever is sitting there knows next to nothing in agriculture practically. The Minister of State for Agriculture, who is a former deputy director in the Agriculture Research Council, has also proven not to know anything about the sector. Two of them not being sacked by now shows that the president himself is sleeping on the job.
“For somebody who has been very passionate about running through different forests and bushes gathering agricultural data in this country, I cry for my country that I know we can feed Africa, but instead of us doing times two of what Buhari, who did not declare a presidential emergency on agriculture, has done, the government that declared a state of emergency on agriculture and food security has not done up to what he did. For the fact that they declared a presidential emergency on food security and agriculture, they are supposed to do times two both in food sector monitoring, food sector intervention, food sector research financing, and food sector multilateral agency funding. All that is zero right now.”
However, to reposition agriculture and equip it to function optimally in order to contribute meaningfully to the GDP, Aloefuna insists on allowing local governments full autonomy to handle the sector.
“What they need to do is hand agriculture over to local governments because the farms are in the local governments. The market in the constitution is allocated to local governments, so why will some people sit down somewhere and be using agriculture to do 419 in the name of budgeting?” he said, adding, “You will never get agriculture right until you take it to the local governments. Agriculture can only flourish in this country if local governments are allowed to manage agricultural intervention funds; if they are allowed to give funding directly to their farmers because they know their farmers.
“And let them run that fund called NADFUND (National Agricultural Development Fund), which started operation two weeks before the exit of Buhari. Almost two years into the new administration, it has made no major impact. There has been no flagship project apart from the intervention in the ginger value chain in Kaduna following the ginger epidemic in the state.
“Government does not know its responsibility in agriculture. You have people as agricultural technocrats who don’t even know where the farms are.”
For his part, the President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Farouk Mudi, cautions that if the agricultural sector is not adequately funded and catered for, it cannot perform well, and if it does not perform, it cannot contribute reasonably to the GDP.
Mudi said, “Everyone is talking about food prices in Nigeria. Not more than 10 percent of farmers are getting all the interventions that the government is providing. Therefore, we are asking them to do more. We are not saying there are no interventions; there are. However, there has to be an increase for us to be food secure and to ensure a reduction in food prices that everyone is complaining about.”
He further stated that, “The agricultural sector is a very wide sector, and food security is a major issue. Any economy that is not food secure can never stand the test of time. I know the government is doing a lot, but whatever they are doing now is a tip of the iceberg in relation to what we the farmers are asking for. If the government does not do more than it is doing now, things will not go well.”