Urgent diversification of the economy
through expansion of agro- industries has been brought to the fore, as
Roberts Orya, CEO, Nigerian Export Import Bank, says the industry holds
10 million job opportunity.
According to him, the most important
pillar for promoting Nigeria’s agro- industrial sector is the po-
tential for job creation across the agric value chain.
He says in a report that the value chain
of the agric sector is capable of generating additional 10 million
jobs over the next decade, and it can serve as one of the centerpieces
of capital formation in Nigeria’s new economy.
“Indeed, agro- processing promises exciting prospects for inclusive growth and social stability,” he says.
Nigeria is heavily endowed with
natural assets, unfortunately, the country has concentrated on one –
oil, but Orya says the country needs to seriously look towards expansion
of agro-industries as key to unlocking the huge potential in agric
production.
“One of the reasons eco-nomic
diversification is an imperative for Nigeria is because the country is
too richly endowed with natural assets for us to concentrate on tapping
just one. The one we have concentrated on oil is a depleting as- set.
Therefore, the economic diversification model that the country needs is
one that can help absorb fiscal shocks, fend off monetary instability,
provide employ-ment for the teeming work age population as well as
generate more revenue for the government to meet its commitments to the
people,” Orya notes in the report.
Agriculture, he says, rep- resents the
low hanging fruit in the quest to structurally transform the Nigerian
economy, saying “the outlook of global agricul-ture supports this
assertion. Since the global spike in food prices in 2008, food security
has remained at the front burners of the international policy agenda.”
Beyond this, global agri- culture itself
is undergoing multiple layers of transition, as “population growth and
changing consumption hab- its have started to drive up demand for food
in multiple varieties. By year 2050, the world population will reach 9
billion.That means addi-tional 2 billion people would require food in 35 years’ time, compared with now”.
According to him, the in- terplay of
current domestic demand and supply scenar-ios also supports a buoyant
outlook for agriculture and the agro-industry in Nigeria. On the demand
side, Nigeria is a growing market.
He said “we currently profile the over
$10 billion we spend yearly on food importa-tion as negative, it
actually also paints the picture of an aspect of effective demand which
can be served locally, and which can help con- serve our foreign
exchange and make the local cur-rency less volatile in value. This
therefore provides a strong-financial-returns im-petus for additional
local investments in agro-food processing. More success with poverty
reduction and strengthening of the middle class will further boost food
demand growth.”
DANIEL OBI & OLUYINKA ALAWODE
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