Lack of investment, greatest threat to agriculture in Nigeria – Pearson

By JONAH NWOKPOKU
The Managing Director of Afrocet Nigeria, Bryan Pearson has identified lack of investment in the agricultural sector as the major threat to its growth and development.

Bryan, who made the observation in an interview with Vanguard, on potential   of the sector and the opportunities that the upcoming ‘Agra Innovate’ exhibition and conference will provide for farmers in the country, decried that the oil and gas sector has gobbled up most of the investible funds that should have been dedicated to growing the agricultural sector.
He noted that with increased investment in the sector, Nigeria has the potential to play major role in combating global food insecurity by becoming net exporters of different agricultural produce.

“Nigeria has the potential to be huge exporters. This is because the soil is good, the climate is perfect, but the problem is, the big money has chased oil and gas for the last four decades. And agriculture needs some big money to make it work. For instance, if you are going to set up a proper groundnut plant anywhere in Nigeria, you need at least $70 million but then rather than import groundnut oil which is what Nigeria does mostly now, you will not be spending foreign exchange in importing, you will be producing it more cheaply,” he said. He said the Afrocet exhibition and conference is a platform designed to foster high level discussion among farmers, investors and technology providers on how to rebuild agriculture in the country.

According to him, the three- day event will involve the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina who will present a keynote speech on Nigeria’s agricultural transformation – policy, technology and investment priorities.

He explained that other topics that will be explored at the event include: Making the case for investing in Nigerian agriculture: Key market drivers and opportunities; the Nigerian input supply market: Ongoing lessons from the private sector in GES implementation; the Nigerian fertiliser revolution: Identifying opportunities in a booming market and Analysing the rate of technological modernisation and mechanisation in Nigeria’s large scale farming and processing sector. Others include: Rice production: An accelerated path to national self sufficiency; Implementing the ‘Staple crops processing zones’ initiative: Agro-industrial drivers of modernisation and private sector investment and combating post-harvest losses through storage technology and private sector driven agricultural commodity exchanges.”

He said, there are a host of other relevant topics arranged for each day of the conference with discussants and participants drawn from business, government, multinationals including multilateral organisations like World Bank, IFC, etc.

Pearson said the meeting is expected to become an annual event and that with a partnership with Informa, the world’s largest publicly quoted Conference and Exhibition Company, it is hoped that the meeting will be a catalyst for change, new ideas and initiatives.

“This meeting is designed to complement what the federal ministry and even the states are doing in the sector. We are looking at different elements of innovation because agriculture in thirty years’ time has been going on, on the 24th floor of office building without soil. So you have to have the right investment, inputs, markets, and all these different aspects. And what we are trying to do is look through the different commodities, different main crops and look at what Nigeria needs to do to move ahead on those aspects,” he said.

- Culled from: http://www.vanguardngr.com