Rome was not built in a day; it takes long and purposeful planning to get to the admirable development where things work. Looking critically at the achievement of the developed world today, we will notice that agriculture played a significant role in their advancement. The trend is that they have continued to evolve structure to combat emerging challenges. However, this has not forestalled new challenges from propping up in the ever changing world of today.

Nigeria is endowed with both human and material resources but we are yet to strike the balance on the appropriate manpower to key sectors of the economy. For more than forty years the slogan for development of the country is hinged on its natural potentials in agriculture. However, the practice of farming in Nigeria has not been competitive right from the first stage of the process. Majority of farmers in Nigeria are faced with problem of individual production, lack of capital, storage facilities and access to land as well as processing plants. Inspite of this, Nigerian farmers have continued to strive to produce enough food to feed the teeming population.

The support services that would have made our farmers to be competitive in the world market had been neglected because of the oil boom which should have been a blessing toward developing agro allied industry that would have enhanced the produce of our farmers. Every year a lot of perishable produce like tomatoes, pepper, onion, watermelon, potatoes are wasted because of lack of storage facilities and processing plants.

These problems of lack of capital, storage facilities, packaging and grading, access to land etc have been identified long time ago and have been embedded in our educational system right from the primary and secondary schools level as well as higher institutions. Students were informed of these mirages of problems and possible solutions but there had been general lack of determination and capacity to solve these problems as result of nepotism, self centeredness, maladministration and corruption.

Previous administrations had formulated different strategies, policies and programmes to tackle problems in the non oil sector of the economy in a bid to alleviate poverty and transformation of the economy as well as imperative of industrialization for development but all efforts in this direction had not yielded good results based on the same fact that stakeholders in the industry were either ignorant or not consulted when these policies were been formulated.

Over the years things have receded and the hope and expectation had dwindled. We have nose-dived from being among the leading producers and exporters of agric produce to the world to a net importer at the moment. It has however been noted that poverty in Nigeria persists because of the very low yield of the nation's agricultural sector and once the nation's agricultural sector begins to raise its output for various crops, the menace of poverty would be reduced.

These lapses have been identified by the present administration which had led to identification of key element of motivation and drive that will energize the process of improving the contribution of non oil sector by involving the real stakeholders to partner with government. This was demonstrated recently by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry under the able leadership of the Ministers of Commerce and Industry Engineer Charles C. Ugwuh and the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Ahmed Garba Bichi during the inauguration of Cashew Association of Nigeria in Abuja and the Workshop on oil palm produce which respectively held in Lagos and Uyo recently.

 This was in line with President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's avowed commitment towards the development of the non-oil sector of the economy with particular attention to agriculture, in a bid to achieve the Seven Point Agenda, economic diversification through value addition by establishment of agro-industrial clusters in the country.

It should be noted that the Director General of United Nation Dr. Yumkella Kandeh had stated during his official visit to Nigeria that agric and agro allied sector remained one major key for creating job and promoting development in Nigeria. He said "there is no doubt in his mind that Nigeria can produce what she need and sell the rest to the world" You are number one in producing cassava in the world. The difference is that Nigeria does not add value, Nigeria only consumes it as garri while others produce cassava bread, flour pellet and flavouring etc.

The focus now is to improve those areas that we have clear disadvantage such as land tiling tools, packaging, grading, promotion of sales and improvement of technology and competitiveness as well as fiscal policy measure.

Based on the above, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is working on the modalities to improve packaging and standard of Nigeria's produce to be competitive in order to improve the export earning of the country by 47 percent so as to make the much needed impact on the economy. Recently during the meeting between the Ministry and National Agricultural Foundation of Nigeria (NAFN) the Minister urged them to put more energy in the presentation of our products and concentrate on a few products which we have comparative advantage.

During the stakeholders meeting of Cashew Association of Nigeria the Honourable Minister of State Ahmed Bichi stated that, if the cashew industry is properly reorganized by adding value instead of exporting raw nuts, it would contribute to the improvement of the economic well-being of more Nigerians, adding that government has resolved to promote value addition in all commodities and urged relevant associations to partner with government in ensuring the attainment of this objective.

The Minister advised the various interest groups in the country to unite in order to access financial facilities from government and financial institutions so as to improve on their trade.

Addressing stakeholders during oil palm workshop titled, "Development of the oil palm industry in Nigeria" which held in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital and in Lagos in April this year Engr. Ugwuh pointed out that the major problem militating against effective development of the oil palm industry in the country was lack of awareness of the adverse effects of certain conduct that undermines the quality and standard of our palm products. He pointed out that such act as adulteration and colouring of Palm oil greatly affect the competitiveness of our palm oil in the local and international markets.

He urged the association and the Stakeholders to look at the expansion programme and position their members in order to access funds under the National Resources Funds which is equivalent to 1.68% at the consolidated revenue fund which was meant for the benefit of Agriculture by this administration.It is discernible from the comments and actions of the government officials that growing of non oil export is a sure avenue to provide employment to teeming Nigeria youths and improved the standard of living of 70% of rural people. The onus now lies with Nigeria farmers to jettison the idea of doing things alone but to embrace cooperation with others in order to provide them the basis for accessing loans and government incentives.

The Department of Commodities and Produces under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is ready to partner with stakeholders to activate a process that will increase the contribution of non oil export. Stakeholders as a matter of urgency should make consultations and arrive at a common position, which will form the kernel of government's position in improving their industry.

Bolaji O. Kazeem

Bolaji28@yahoo.com

Federal Ministry of Commerce and Industry

Robot  # 1 | 19.09.2008 22:35

Rome was not built in a day; it takes long and purposeful planning to get to the admir...Read the full article.