As high food prices hit Nigerians below the belt, the President. All Africa Association for Small and Medium Enterprises, AAASME, Dr Ebiekure Eradiri, asserted that there is a need for governments at all levels to own farms along various value chains and also aggressively fund agriculture.
Eradiri stated this while reacting to the development of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in the agricultural sector, and how they can improve on their productivity and meet international standards in terms of exports.
He said: "I think the first thing the Nigerian government needs to do is to be more intentional. For instance, the government should be able to have its own farms, grow food so that Nigerians can have excess food supply in the market, and that is being intentional.
"And then two, ensure that each household, Nigerian, has a farm because it has to be aggressive, that is the way to have food sufficiency everywhere around the nation.
"And then, most importantly, ensure that you have storage because if you don't have the right storage even when the farmers have yields, and when they harvest, they are not kept for storage, and then at the end of the day you have spoilage then that is wastage.
"So we need to encourage the government to be able to set up more silos, more storage facilities, they have to be intentional in policies, and aggressively fund the agricultural sector in Nigeria."
As a SMEs expert, he also pointed out it is very imperative to fund SMEs for more productivity.
"Yes, indeed, there are things that Nigeria is good at, and there are things other countries are good at.
"Apparently, the funding structure and SMEs not following through it is not only a challenge in Nigeria but a huge number of Africans. African countries also have the same experience.
"And so what is important is having a deliberate structure on finance, it means that, assuming you want to have a farm for cashew or a farm for bitter leaf, you have to be deliberate and ensure that you have an off-taker market, so that as you are funding the farmer, you are already ready to sell to an off-taker.
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"So the moment you have an off-taker market and a structured approach, you will not have this issue of funding, and then because most times funding is given but people divert funds. So a structured approach of how to achieve that has to be the solution, and I think if Nigeria keys in that direction that can be achieved.
"In Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, and Botswana, they are doing well when it comes to this because there is a clear structure, and so once you have a structure and an off-taker market, then you will not have a situation of diversion of funds", he added.
