Although some progress was recorded under the agric sector in the past eight years, this still does not reflect in the state of food availability, accessibility and affordability across the country
Eight years ago, when President Muhammadu Buhari took office, one of his promises was to diversify the oil-dominated economy by upscaling agricultural productivity through viable investments and enhancing farmers' capacity to plug into untapped opportunities across the sector's value chain.
The new president said Nigerians should "grow what they eat, and eat what they grow," to boost local food production, increase foreign exchange earnings and reduce the country's food importation bill significantly.
In his inaugural speech in 2015, Mr Buhari also promised to reduce the soaring unemployment figures in the country through the revival of the agriculture sector.
"Unemployment, notably youth unemployment, features strongly in our party's manifesto. We intend to attack the problem frontally through revival of agriculture, solid minerals mining as well as credits to small and medium size businesses to kick - start these enterprises. We shall quickly examine the best way to revive major industries and accelerate the revival and development of our railways, roads and general infrastructure," Mr Buhari's 2015 inaugural speech read in part.
In subsequent engagement with Nigerians, Mr Buhari said a database of unemployed but qualified youth had been developed under the National Social Investment Programme which can be used by the public and private sectors for recruitment purposes.
"Cumulatively, nearly two million beneficiaries have received aid under this Programme apart from Anchors Borrowers Programme and School Feeding initiative each reaching two million recipients. And we will do more. Much more," he said.
"On food security, our farmers have made great strides in local production of rice, maize, cassava, poultry, fertiliser, fisheries and sesame. We remain resolute in supporting the private sector in emphasising backward integration and export expansion plans."
Under Mr Buhari, the agric ministry was managed by three ministers: Audu Ogbeh, Sabo Nanono and Abubakar Muhammed.
Mr Ogbeh assumed office in December 2015 with the stated aim of restoring the lost glory of the agricultural sector, which was the mainstay of Nigeria's economy in the 1970s before the oil-boom. He recorded some significant successes within the first four years of this administration but faced several criticism following his approach to resolving the perennial farmer-herder clashes in the country. He was not returned as a minister after Mr Buhari was re-elected for a second term in 2019.
Mr Nanono, who succeeded Mr Ogbeh, was himself removed in September 2021, about two years after he was appointed due to his underperformance at the ministry. Mr Nanono was replaced by Mr Abubakar, who was the Minister of Environment.
In this report, PREMIUM TIMES examines key events and data that shaped the country's agricultural sector under Mr Buhari's eight years in office.
Investment and food self-sufficiency
Mr Buhari launched the Anchor Borrowers Programme ( ABP) initiative established by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in November 2015, six months after his inauguration. The government intended to use the programme to create a linkage between anchor (companies) involved in the processing and small holder farmers (SHFs) of some specific agricultural commodities captured in the initiative.
Beneficiaries of the programme are smallholder farmers cultivating cereals (rice, maize, wheat etc.) cotton, roots and tubers, sugarcane, tree crops, legumes, tomato and livestock. Loans are disbursed to the beneficiary farmers through Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and Microfinance Banks (MFBs), which the programme recognises as Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs).
Upon harvest, the farmers repay their loans by taking their harvest to 'anchors' who pay the cash equivalent to the farmers' accounts. The impacts of the initiative and the subsequent closure of Nigeria's border in 2019 were evident in the increased local production of some key staple grains like rice and maize.
While unveiling rice pyramids produced by rice farmers under the ABP initiative across the country in Abuja last year, Mr Buhari said over 4.8 million smallholder farmers have been financed under the initiative across Nigeria to boost production of 23 agricultural commodities in the country.
For instance, before the initiation of the ABP programme, Nigeria's average rice production between 1999 and 2015 was less than four million metric tonnes (mmt) annually. Between 1999 and 2015, the country's yearly milled rice production averaged 2.4 million metric tonnes. However, upon the implementation of the ABP initiative, milled rice production increased from 3.9 mmt in 2015 to 4.5 mmt (15 per cent increase) in 2016, data published by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed.
In 2017 and 2018, Nigeria's milled rice production averaged 4.5 mmt, and rose to 5.0 mmt (11 per cent increase ) in 2019. In 2020, amidst the coronavirus pandemic and the devastating impacts of climate change and insecurity, production decreased to 4.8 mm but later rose to 5.3 and 5.0 mmt in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Data also shows that Nigeria's yearly national production of maize (a major staple among Nigerians and a key raw material for livestock feed production) increased significantly between 2014 and 2022. Nigeria's production figures rose from 10.1 mmt in 2014 to 10.6mmt in 2015 and 11.6 mmt ( 9.34 per cent increase) in 2016.
In 2017, the figure fell to 10.4 mmt but leapt in 2018 to 11.0 mmt. The country's maize production climbed further to 12.7 mmt in 2019 but depreciated slightly to 12.4 mmt in 2020 due to Covid-19 impacts on food systems. Eventually, production picked up in 2021 to 12.75 mmt and settled at 12.20 mmt last year, the data showed.
In the eight years under the Buhari administration, average yearly maize production stood at 11.7 mmt. Meanwhile, under the preceding administrations of presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Musa Yar'Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, the yearly averages were 5.5 mmt, 7.3 mmt and 9.0 mmt respectively, implying that progress has been consistent in the last 20 years. The rate of production between 2015 and 2022 has improved Nigeria's ranking in the region and around the world. Nigeria now ranks 14th and 13th among global milled rice and maize producers, respectively. Likewise, the data also revealed that Nigeria is currently the highest producer of rice in Africa, ahead of Egypt and it occupies the second spot among maize producers in Africa, trailing South Africa which ranks ninth globally.
Despite the success of the ABP, it had siginifact challenges. A 2018 PREMIUM TIMES and Buharimeter investigation in five states - Lagos, Ekiti, Kebbi, Kaduna and Ebonyi - and in neighbouring Benin Republic, revealed that the ABP, which was touted as the answer to Nigeria's quest for self-sufficiency in rice production, failed in many places with the government unable to recoup a large chunk of the N55 billion loan, already disbursed. The ABP gave rise to a multitude of angry farmers who claim the programme was hijacked by local politicians who disbursed funds to fake farmers and became a means of rewarding political patronage.
An effort by the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) to salvage the programme was merely slogging by as complaints of the supply of expired herbicide, bad seeds and other funding, threatened to derail it.
Under Mr Buhari, other notable agricultural policies launched include: Agriculture Promotion Policy (APP), Nigeria-Africa Trade and Investment Promotion Programme (NATIPP), Presidential Economic Diversification Initiative(PEDI), Zero Reject Initiative, Economic and Export Promotion Incentives, National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) and the Food security council among others.
The Presidential Fertiliser Initiative
Before Mr Buhari took office in 2015, Nigeria was a net importer of fertilisers. The major stock of blended fertiliser was usually shipped into the country as fully finished products. Even when Urea and Limestone granules, which constitute the raw materials required for the blending of fertilisers can be locally sourced, the existing blending plants in the country did not operate at their full capacity.
This took a turnaround after Mr Buhari launched the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative (PFI) in 2017 while making his budget presentation. It was in line with the effort to resuscitate Nigeria's moribund fertiliser blending plants in order to boost local production, and food production and as well achieve food security targets.
The launch was preceded by the visit of the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, to Nigeria on 2 December 2016, during which several agreements were reached by the two leaders. One of these agreements concerned a partnership between the Fertiliser Producers and Suppliers of Nigeria (FEPSAN) and OCP, a state-owned Moroccan company and a world leader in phosphate production and its derivatives. The principal goal was to boost Nigeria's capacity to blend NPK fertilisers locally at a much-subsidised price and sell to farmers at less than N6000.
Checks by PREMIUM TIMES revealed that Nigeria's fertiliser value chain through the PFI initiative witnessed significant restructuring, different from what it used to be in the years prior. Within this period, fertiliser plants in the country increased from seven to over 50 blending plants in the last eight years. However, efforts to increase the supply and reduce the cost of the commodity were in some cases truncated by middlemen.
By implication, many farmers across the country complained that they could not access or purchase the products at government-approved rates.
Agric contribution to GDP
Available data shows that agriculture has grown at the weakest rate under the Buhari administration than any other government since the return of democracy in 1999.
The sector contributed an average of 27.5 per cent under President Obasanjo, 25.6 per cent under President Yar'adua, 21.75 per cent under President Jonathan and 24.4 per cent (2015--2021) under President Buhari.
Budgetary allocations
Despite being a signatory to the 2003 Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security in Africa", which among other things requires parties to allocate 10 per cent of their national budgets for the development of agriculture in the continent, Nigeria is yet to comply with the pact two decades after.
Before Mr Buhari became president in 2015, only 1.43 per cent(N67 billion) of Nigeria's 4.7 trillion national budget was allocated to the sector.
In 2015, agriculture drew the least budgetary allocation with only 0.9 per cent of the N4.49 trillion budget.
Between 2016 and 2018, allocation to the sector increased to 1.3 per cent, 1.82 per cent and 2.01 per cent of the N6.10, N7.44 and N8.61 trillions total federal budgets respectively.
The rate fell to 1.56 per cent in 2019, and 1.34 per cent in 2020, before recording a slight increase of 1.37 per cent in 2021 and just 1.8 per cent in 2022 -- the highest recorded in four years.
In percentage terms, the highest allocation to agriculture in the past two decades by any government to date was in 2008 and 2009 respectively.
In 2008, Mr Yar'Adua's government budgeted N2.92 billion for agriculture, which was 5.41 per cent of the total budget, and in 2009, it budgeted N3.101 billion, which was 5.38 per cent of the total budget.
Price Concerns
Despite professed commitment to developing the agricultural sector and the investment directed into the sector within the last eight years under Mr Buhari's reign, the nation is still evidently dependent on the oil sector for fiscal sustainability.
While Nigeria's rice and maize production has seen a major boost over the years under review, the prices of these items and other basic foodstuffs have been on a steady rise. Within the past eight years, prices of basic food and ingredients like bread, rice, and beans among others have skyrocketed significantly amidst rising food inflation in the country.
While Nigeria's rice and maize production has seen a major boost over the years under review, the prices of these items and other basic foodstuffs have been on a steady rise. Within the past eight years, prices of basic food and ingredients like bread, rice, and beans among others have skyrocketed significantly amidst rising food inflation in the country.
This has affected the purchasing power of many citizens whose incomes remain poor in the face of high cost of food, making it difficult for millions of citizens to feed themselves comfortably.
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Corruption and Other Concerns
Meanwhile, a PREMIUM TIMES series titled "Authority Stealing" which exposed illicit transactions flows across ministries and their MDAs found that between September and December 2021, a total of N3.08 billion was paid into the private accounts of 42 staffers of the Ministry of Agriculture under former minister Sabo Nanono.
PREMIUM TIMES observed that several fund disbursements by the nation's agriculture headquarters were done through duplicated payments, some for similar purposes to some officials.
Similarly, despite the continuous claims of subsiding of farm inputs for easy access by Nigerian farmers in different zones of the country by the federal government, many smallholder farmers still lament lack of access to viable inputs and subventions.
Experts speak
Commenting on how the sector has fared in the past eight years, the National President of the Association of Yam Farmers, Processors, and Marketers, Simon Irtwange, expressed worry about the intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in the sector, describing it as "uncoordinated".
"They descended into the arena and made a mess of the initiatives such as the Anchor Borrowers' Program, the Private Sector-Led Accelerated Agriculture Development Scheme (P-AADS) and consequently the programmes failed because beneficiaries were not the real farmers," he said.
On his part, Steve Okeleji, the founder of Aquatic Hub Afrique Network (AHAN), an aquaculture capacity building firm, said the agriculture sector over the past seven years recorded minimal growth.
"Never in the history of Nigeria have we had it this rough and bad," he said in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, adding that the challenges (in the last eight years) were enormous, ranging from insecurity to high cost of farm inputs, low market prices, high cost of imported macro-nutrients and other inputs, high cost of diesel and so on.
"The incoming administration must as a matter of urgency find lasting solutions to these several challenges," Mr Okeleji said.
Meanwhile, Azeez Salawu, Founder and Executive Director at Community Action for Food Security (CAFS) Initiative, said Nigeria's agriculture sector has experienced both positive developments and persistent challenges over the last eight years.
He said the government has made efforts to prioritise agriculture as a key sector for economic diversification and job creation, recognising its potential to reduce dependence on oil revenue and alleviate poverty, but that these challenges still persist.
"Insufficient infrastructure, including road networks and irrigation systems, hampers productivity and hinders the movement of agricultural goods. Inadequate access to finance, limited extension services, and low adoption of modern farming practices continue to impede the sector's growth potential," he said.
He said issues such as climate change, conflicts in farming communities, and insecurity have negatively impacted agricultural activities in certain regions in Nigeria.
"These factors pose significant risks to food security and agricultural sustainability. We need to focus more on implementation of our policies and all stakeholders should work together in order to achieve sustainable food systems transformation in Nigeria," he added.
