The Buhari Administration’s Vision and Approach to Agriculture

Building on the successes and lessons from the ATA, the vision of the Buhari Administration for agriculture is to work with key stakeholders to build an agribusiness economy capable of delivering sustained prosperity by meeting domestic food security goals, generating exports, and supporting sustainable income and job growth. In this regard, a number of specific objectives for the period 2016 – 2020 emerge:

✅Grow the integrated agriculture sector at 1x to 2x the average Nigerian GDP for 2016 – 2020; sector’s historical growth was between 3% - 6% per annum in 2011 – 2015, hence the need to raise performance. Assuming GDP growth of 6% in 2017, agriculture would aim to achieve 6% - 12% , allowing agricultural household income to double in 6 – 12 years, holding all else equal

🍓Agriculture’sShareofGDP:23%(Q12016)

🍓Agriculture’s Share of the Labor Force: 70% 🥦AgriculturalActivityMix:CropProduction:85%;Livestockandothernon-crop:15%

✅ Integrate agricultural commodity value chains into the broader supply chain of Nigerian and global industry, driving job growth, increasing the contribution of agriculture to wealth creation, and enhancing the capacity of the country to earn foreign exchange from agricultural exports;

🥦Agriculture’s Share of Non-Oil Exports Earnings: 75%

✅Promote the responsible use of land, water and other natural resources to create a vibrant

agricultural sector offering employment and livelihood for a growing population;

✅Facilitate the government’s capacity to meet its obligations to Nigerians on food security, food

safety and quality nutrition

🥦Agriculture’s Share of Federal Budget: ~2.0%

✅ Create a mechanism for improved governance of agriculture by the supervising institutions, and improving quality of engagement between the Federal and State Governments.

Unlocking Nigeria’s full agricultural potential requires that Nigeria solve the underlying challenges in its agricultural system, which includes the following:

🥦Policy Framework: Nigeria suffers from policy instability driven by high rate of turnover of programmes and personnel, which in turn has made the application of policy instruments unstable. The outcome is an uneven development pathway for agriculture; lack of policy accountability, transparency and due process of law, relating to willful violation of the constitution and subsidiary legislations governing the agriculture sector. That in turn has made the business environment unpredictable and discourages investors. To address this challenge, Nigeria needs to create a policy structure that matches evidence-driven coordination among decision-making authorities with common and public goals for an agricultural transformation of the country. Building that evidence base requires that Nigeria adopt a consistent fact base to drive decision making, as well as build on prior successes e.g. the Jonathan Administration’s pioneering Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA).

🥦PoliticalCommitment:Thispertainstothenon-implementationofinternationalprotocolsor conventions agreed to with other members of the comity of nations. For example, Nigeria has failed to achieve the targets in the Maputo Declaration that prescribes a minimum of 10% budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector. Political commitment at both the Federal and State levels will be required to enforce reforms.

🥦Agricultural Technology: Persistent shortcomings of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) to generate and commercialize new agricultural technologies that meet local

market needs. NARS’s challenges have been relatively severe particularly around improved varieties of seed or other planting materials and breeds of livestock and aquatic species. The failure to also deliver already proven technologies available on the shelf to farmers’ fields where they are needed is a challenge. Addressing these will require better coordination among extension delivery system, the national agricultural research system, as well as public and private sector suppliers of agricultural inputs.

🥦Infrastructure Deficit: Nigeria’s agricultural sector suffers from an infrastructure challenge. Infrastructure such as motor roads, railroads or irrigation dams are either insufficient, or when available, not cost competitive. They are thus unable to operate to support scale-driven agriculture. That imposes an added cost (up to 50% - 100%) on the delivered price of agricultural produce in Nigeria, making it uncompetitive compared to global peers. In order to boost farm productivity, raise the level of marketable surplus and expand value chain participants’ access to low cost infrastructure, Nigeria will need to rethink the business and operating model for agricultural infrastructure

🥦Finance and Risk Management: Nigeria’s agriculture sector continues to have poor access to financial services that enable farmers and other agricultural producers to adopt new technologies, improve market linkages, and increase their resilience to economic shocks. Poor access to financial services that enable input suppliers, processors, traders and others in agribusiness to address liquidity and encourage targeted private sector engagement in agriculture remains a challenge. Lending rates still routinely range from 10% to 30% subject to whether the borrower is considered prime, has access to low cost, government-provided financing (BoA, CBN, BOI), or is offered a NIRSAL Plc. -financed interest rate subsidy and credit guarantee. To improve financing options and de-risk value chains further, Nigeria will need to intensify innovation in financing ecosystems,

🥦InstitutionalReformandRealignment:Today,manyfederalandstateagriculturalinstitutions only exist on paper. In fact, the system even ignores local government areas which is actually where a majority of activity takes place. There is a need to streamline, clarify mandates and ensure continued accountability for results. Unless these issues are tackled, Nigeria will continue to struggle with the capacity of its agricultural institutions to deliver on their public mandates. A turnaround will mean, for example, adding more resources such as adding up to 15,000 extension workers, setting up more operational coordination mechanisms between the Federal Government and States in between the National Council of Agriculture, and linking rewards to performance.

In addressing these constraints, the government will apply prudent, market based policy measures to grow the sector, with a clear recognition that widespread poverty reduction through the transformation of the agriculture sector is integral to the country’s long run economic growth trajectory and prosperity. Accordingly, this policy statement is anchored on three main pillars in line with the constitutional provision for the role of Federal Government in agricultural development:

✅ Promotion of agricultural investment;

✅ Financing agricultural development programmes and

✅Research for agricultural innovation and productivity.

Credit to The FMARD Strategy Document 2016-2020