By Adeola Badru

Ibadan – Former Senior Special Adviser on Industrialisation to the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Professor Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, has called on the Nigerian government to urgently industrialise the country’s agricultural sector as a strategic pathway to achieving food security, economic diversification, and sustainable employment.

Speaking at the Oyo State Economic Summit held at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, during a lecture titled “Industrializing Agriculture for Economic Development and Food Security: Enhancing National Economies and Sub-National Entities”, Professor Oyelaran-Oyeyinka warned that despite Nigeria’s vast arable land and status as a leading global producer of crops such as cassava and yam, the nation remains a food-deficit country heavily reliant on imports.

He noted that Nigeria spends over one trillion naira annually importing wheat, rice, sugar, and fish, a trend that drains foreign exchange, undermines local farmers, weakens industrial competitiveness, and fuels unemployment.

According to the development economist, the solution lies in transforming agriculture from subsistence farming into a modern, industrial enterprise capable of producing surplus, supporting manufacturing, and driving broad-based economic growth.

“Industrialising agriculture does not mean replacing rural communities with factories,” he said. “It means empowering farmers with technology, skills, infrastructure, and market access to raise productivity and incomes.”

Professor Oyelaran-Oyeyinka highlighted structural challenges limiting Nigeria’s agricultural productivity, including weak education systems, limited skills, and inadequate investment in technology and infrastructure. He cited stark disparities between Africa and Asia, noting that cereal yields in African countries remain less than a third of those achieved in East Asia, explaining why African economies struggle to compete globally.

He outlined key pillars for agricultural industrialisation, including mechanisation, value addition, integrated supply chains, access to finance, improved seed systems, and investment in human and technological capabilities. “Farms must be treated as factories without roofs, feeding into agro-processing, manufacturing, and export industries,” he said.

Drawing lessons from Vietnam, Professor Oyelaran-Oyeyinka highlighted how deliberate agricultural modernisation transformed the Southeast Asian country from a food importer into a leading exporter of rice, coffee, cashew, and seafood, generating tens of billions of dollars annually and underpinning broader industrial success.

He urged Nigerian state governments to prioritise infrastructure, strengthen agricultural extension services, and create special agro-industrial processing zones to attract domestic and international investors. He also called on the private sector to view agriculture as a profitable business frontier, emphasizing that Nigeria’s future prosperity depends less on oil and more on harnessing the productive potential of its land and people.

“We are a nation that can feed itself and others, yet we remain food-insecure and overly dependent on imports,” he said. “Subsistence agriculture is both a cause and a consequence of technological backwardness, and no country has reached middle-income status without first modernising its agriculture. The seeds of Nigeria’s prosperity are not buried in oil wells; they are sown in the fertile soils of our ecological zones.”