Article summary:
- Brazil has transformed from a net food importer to a top global exporter, offering valuable lessons for Nigeria in agriculture.
- By focusing on value addition, investing in research, and providing risk guarantees for investor equity, Nigeria could drive growth and create jobs through agriculture.
- To achieve this, Nigeria must prioritize its domestic market, invest in smallholder farmers, and combat government fraud hindering funds allocation.
In the 1960s, Brazil was a net importer of food, but now it is one of the top exporters of farm goods in the world.
In recent years, Brazil, a country with 214 million people, has become a world star in agriculture. Nigeria can learn from Brazil’s success and change its reputation as a “mono-economy” by focusing on agriculture to drive growth and create jobs.
In an interview with the Financial Times in October 2020, Christopher Okeke, a former Nigerian minister to Brazil, said, “Brazil and Nigeria share flora.” “As a result, many of the physical things you see in Brazil are also possible or available here.”
He said that when Nigeria got its freedom from the UK in 1960, it was one of the biggest exporters of peanuts and palm oil, but that changed when the country started focusing on crude oil.
He said that when the country started getting money from oil exports, the amount of food it brought in from other places started to go up. “Being able to import wheat, rice, and other foods made it so that basic information about agricultural inputs and outputs was hard to find and didn’t get enough investment and attention.”
The International Fund for Agricultural Development says that Brazil is the fourth-largest agricultural producer in the world. It is the largest producer of coffee, sugarcane, and citrus fruits and the second largest producer of soybeans, beef, and chicken.
Agriculture in the country grew by adding value and spending money on education.
Even so, Nigeria’s farming is making some progress. Experts say that for the country to be more productive, it needs to start adding value to its raw agricultural goods and put money into research.
Even though Nigeria’s agriculture is bigger than that of other African countries, it has less money for study in the field than other African countries.
According to a 2015 study by ActionAid, for every $100 of agricultural output, Ghana spends $0.94 and Uganda spends $1.40 on agricultural research. Nigeria spends only $0.42 per $100 of agricultural output.
In terms of money spent and number of researchers, Nigeria has the best agricultural research system in Africa, with more than 80 government and high education institutes and more than 2,000 researchers doing research. But government fraud keeps funds from getting to places where they are most needed.
Nigeria’s agriculture also has trouble getting private money, which is one of its problems. A lot of the industry’s money comes from government grants and low-interest loans, especially from the central bank.
Stakeholders have said that there is a huge possibility for investment in agriculture if a plan is made to bring in local equity.
“A simple win would be for the government to provide risk guarantees for investor equity,” said Omoniyi Omojola, an investment banker in Lagos who has helped structure and raise money for several agricultural projects.
Agribusiness people in Brazil think that Nigeria needs to focus on its own market before it can start selling. Igor Corrêa Pinto, a Brazilian agricultural businessman with interests in Nigeria, says, “We have a growing population, and before we can think about exports, we need to feed them in a stable and secure way.”In contrast to Brazil today, smallholder farmers still do things by hand, which has stopped their yields from reaching their full potential. Nigeria has between 15 million and 30 million small farmers, who are responsible for about 95% of the country’s farm output.