Challenges still to
be overcome
Aside the gaps highlighted in the
previous section, there are also
foundational issues like poor
infrastructure, high cost of
transportation, land rights, access to
technology, skills and finance. As a
nation, we’re not tackling these
issues fast enough.
Within the context of elevating
agriculture from a predominantly
subsistence enterprise into industrial
enterprises, we need to upgrade and
improve our manufacturing
capacities and capabilities.
The challenge of building ecosystems
around farming areas is one to be
taken seriously. As noted earlier, the
oil sector and how it has developed
can act as a roadmap. The challenge
is to ensure that those factors and
constraints – including politics –
which have held back the oil industry
from truly being a catalyst for
economic prosperity, are not allowed
to hold back the agricultural sector.
For a start, government needs to
focus on its policies –including fiscal,
monetary and trade policies - and
creating an enabling and regulatory
16 The Export Brief | MAY 2018 | IEOM-NG.ORG
environment that instills confidence
in private sector investors.
It needs to shed its reputation for
crowding out private sector activity in
the agricultural sector with too many
direct interventions – especially in
the seed and fertilizer sub-sectors –
which have not led to the desired
results.
Building an effective agribusiness
sector is critical to Nigeria’s future
and it will require a holistic approach
to achieve this, an approach that
prioritizes optimizing specific value
chains which are strategic to the
nation’s economy; drawing up plans
and following through on those plans
to eliminate constraints per specific
value chain, e.g. rice, wheat, maize,
etc.
The challenges are many but so are
the opportunities. There are
encouraging signs already however,
government must understand its role
– setting priorities - and be careful to
avoid overstepping its capacity,
distorting incentives, or creating an
environment that favors rent seeking.
On their part, private investors must
pay attention to fostering inclusive
growth.