The need for diversification has brought into bearing, investment in agriculture as a close complement and/or alternative to oil & gas which has remained the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy for over five decades. The focus rightly finds shape of relevance given the strength of potentials, human and geographical advantage, which the Country accommodates. With strong conviction, no argument may be deemed tenable to question the potentials of agriculture in the Country, as a building pillar upon which the Nigerian economy can stretch its base. Even before the exploration of oil, records have given agriculture the pride of place as the mainstay of the economy.
However, the honeywell of cheap oil money was a diversionary arrow that shifted focus from the once burgeoning sector (agriculture) to another, whose sweet days really splashed fortune on the Country, but was lavished by poor management and corruption syndrome. Hence, the days of oil have not really translated to reasonable development for the Country, as the economy remains strained and emaciated.
Recently, as the realities of woes of economic downturn have dawn on the Country with strains of inconsistencies in global oil prices, among other trends, the significance of broadening the base of the stay of the economy have become a non-negotiable factor, if the economy of the Country must be salvage from an apocalyptic collapse.
It is of no doubt that the subject no longer dwells within the corridor of the acknowledgement of the significance of agriculture, either to dualise the base of the economy with oil, or complement same.
The question of agriculture serving as a leading substitute to oil is one of higher consideration. However, for all these sides, the actualisation of purpose remains key. Clear policies to drive the move unto reality are sacrosanct, just as investment coordinated alongside to vitalise these policies are sine qua non. It cannot however, be argued that there has been non of either policies or investment, but the question has moved to the point of assessment of policies and investment, giving close evaluation to their impacts to achieving the desideratum.
Unbiased perusal of the status of the productivity of the agriculture sector will largely reveal that the output of the sector, presently, is largely far from any close resemblance to either serving as a substantial complement to oil, or as a formidable substitute to same, as a base sustaining the economy formidably. This is to tell that the assessment of the impacts of policies, programmes and the corresponding investment, demand checks of critical assessment to recondition their working framework and tneir terms of provisions.
Although investment in agriculture in terms of loans have been said to have hit N1trn, recently, the impacts have been largely insignificant. It appears the grip of dysfunctional deformities have taken over the day in the implementation of the processes. Issues of defaults in the loan accessibility and repayment procedures have been pronounced, while the tracking mode of monitoring mechanisms may be said to be weak. Having such a huge investment provision, while the records of food production in the Country wax gross with rising scarcity of food, tending towards crisis, is alarming and therefore calls for concern. The contribution of agriculture to the GDP is still largely insignificant.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has continued to run and disburse a number of grant and loan facilities to boost investment in the sector. It is however, important to state that driving the sector for productivity would transcend the provision of loan facility to encourage investors, but the building of a working system of complementarity with corresponding structures that create linkage relevance for impacts and performance. In this light, a working structure that gives parameters of monitoring mechanisms to loans from the opening processes of proposals, to the end of execution, are clearly essential to avert the narratives of defaults in provisions of loans and grants. It is no doubt that there would be mischievous elements who may have wrong intentions, or with good intentions but lagging in the knowledge of techniques of the proposed venture, and as such may render such facility a wasteful letting.
It is thus, important that policies driving grants and loans be closely conditioned within a working system that minimises, to the nearest minimum, factors of losses, by reconditioning the working framework to eliminate every slight gap which may have been frustrating the goodwill of provisions to vitalise the sector.
Hence, redefining the framework of policies in the agriculture sector, using impact assessment to recondition the parameters of the framework for quality control, have become sacrosanct if the strength of the will to boost the profile of agriculture to fortify the economy would become realistic.