By JIMOH BABATUNDE

The Minister of  of Agriculture & Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, has said that  inability to meet domestic food requirements and  inability to export at quality levels required for market success are two major gaps in the country’s agriculture today.

Audu Ogbeh

Speaking ahead of the the official launch and public presentation of the Agricultural Sector Roadmap (the Green Alternative), Agricultural Promotion Policy (2016 – 2020), earlier scheduled for Monday in Abuja, Ogbeh said it has become imperative to  “refresh our strategy” to tackle these two  issues head on.

The minister explained that the policy of the past government , Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) focused on how to make Nigeria’s agriculture more productive, efficient and effective.

“It set a target of creating 3.5 million jobs by 2015; generating foreign exchange, and reducing spending on food imports. Among its key achievements was a restructuring of the federal fertilizer procurement system.

“ATA, however, also faced challenges and did not deliver on all the targets identified. For example, Nigeria still imports about $3 to $5 billion worth of food annually, especially wheat, rice, fish and sundry items, including fresh fruits.

“As a result, Nigeria is not food secure. Wastage levels remain high in production areas, reducing supply of feedstock to processing factories, requiring them to keep importing supplies. The net effect is limited job growth across the agricultural value chain from input production to market systems, and continued use of limited foreign currency earnings to import vast quantities of food.

The Minister said the policy and strategic focus is now on how to build on the initial progress made, and transition Nigeria to a new plane in terms of agribusiness performance.

“That will be the focus of the proposed new policy regime. That new policy’s primary focus will be on closing the demand – supply gaps between crop and livestock production. Gap closing will also include tackling related input, financing, storage, transport and market access issues present in key value chains.

“Nigeria is facing two key gaps in agriculture today: an inability to meet domestic food requirements, and an inability to export at quality levels required for market success. The former problem is a productivity challenge driven by an input system and farming model that is largely inefficient. As a result, an ageing population of farmers do not have enough seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, crop protection and related support to be successful.

“The latter challenge is driven by an equally inefficient system for setting and enforcing food quality standards, as well as poor knowledge of target markets. Insufficient food testing facilities, a weak inspectorate system in the ministry, and poor coordination among relevant federal agencies serve to compound early stage problems such as poor knowledge of permissible contaminant levels.”

Audu Ogbeh added that as productivity improves domestically and standards are raised for all Nigerian food production, he said export markets will also benefit impacting positively on Nigeria’s balance of payments.

He explained that  the Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (FMARD) in consultation with partners has identified an initial pool of crops and related activities that will be Nigeria’s path to tackling the identified  gaps.

“First, the ministry  will prioritize improving productivity into a number of domestically focused crops and activities. These are rice, wheat, maize, fish (aquaculture), dairy milk, soya beans, poultry, horticulture (fruits and vegetables), and sugar.

“Nigeria believes that the gap can be closed by partnering closely with private investors across farmer groups and companies to develop end to end value chain solutions. These chains will receive facilitated government support as they make deep commitments to engaging a new generation of farmers, improving supply of specialized fertilizers and protection chemicals, as well as wider scale use of high yielding seeds.

He said the country will work with investors to sharply improve the distribution system for fresh foods so as to reduce time to table, reduce post-harvest losses, and overall improve nutritional outcomes by  lowering of diabetic risk and stunting risk among others.