- Why would Nigeria import $4.6 billion worth of concentrates yearly?
It must be one of the most perplexing paradoxes for a country to import from other countries, all the commodities it ought to be exporting. This seems to have been the definitive story of Nigeria since the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity in the 1960s. Today, Nigeria spends billions of dollars annually on the importation of food and industrial raw materials such as rice, tomato puree, fresh fruits and concentrates, poultry products, fish, sea foods and palm products.
Most paradoxical is that crude oil and derivative products therefrom for which Nigeria jettisoned her agricultural wealth, is also a major drain of foreign exchange. Nigeria exports her crude oil in its raw form and imports over a dozen processed by-products of crude oil at huge costs.
So, here is a country importing all the things it ought to be exporting. It is this prodigal tendency that the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Chief Audu Ogbeh, was lamenting when he noted that Nigeria spends about $4.6 billion annually on the importation of fruit concentrates for the production of fruit juices. He grieved that this huge amount of foreign exchange is being frittered away in a country where natural fruits waste away in many parts of the country.
The minister was speaking at an interactive session with the House of Representatives Committee on Rural Development, on strategies to protect rural farmers. He decried the influx of imported and adulterated food products into the country; an action inimical to local production and sustainable growth of Nigerian farmers. “How can we invite farmers to grow food and yet they cannot sell them because of cheaper imported substitutes?” Chief Ogbeh wondered.
Chief Ogbeh proffered agricultural mechanisation as the panacea to the problem, positing that it would make farming and agro-business attractive to the younger ones.
While we agree with some of the prognoses of the minister, we aver that the matter at hand is rather urgent and of grave magnitude. It is not about throwing mind-troubling figures at the populace; we recall that his immediate predecessor fed Nigerians with more figures about locally produced food.
Nigerians would want the minister to point the way forward and unveil a roadmap for creating a long-lasting change in Nigeria’s agric sector. Being a farmer himself, he should be aware that we expect him to quickly tap into the various planting and production cycles in the farming value chain.
The poultry subsector, for instance, can enjoy a massive boost in just one year. Same goes for crops like maize and other seasonal farm produce. Having bemoaned the huge sum spent on the importation of concentrates, the minister could effect a radical shift in just one to two years if he moves quickly and sets about work in Nigeria’s fruit belts. The happy culprit is Benue State.
He can easily get the companies that are heavy importers of concentrates to meet the farmers in the fruit zone. Half of the oranges, watermelon, pineapples, bananas and guava cultivated in Nigeria probably go to waste every year. The big importers of concentrates must begin to produce some of their concentrate requirements locally.
It is all about policy, purpose and the will to drive them to a logical conclusion. Now that crude oil prices have continued on a downward spin, Nigeria’s agriculture economy must be revived urgently. Farming and agro-allied industries should be the new crude oil. If we remember that Nigeria was prosperous in the 50s and 60s subsisting on agriculture, then returning to that old glory would not seem like an impossible task.
The fall in oil prices may well turn out a blessing at the end of the day – it may mark the end of Nigeria’s prodigality. But we require a burning sense of urgency and an unwavering focus.
