Agric: Key to achieving MDGs

It is no news that Nigeria continues to depend on imported food to feed majority of its population though the agricultural potential of the country can also be explored to export advantage.Experts have expressed worry that the country’s agriculture accounts for 40.2% of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), by far surpassing wholesale and trade […]

It is no news that Nigeria continues to depend on imported food to feed majority of its population though the agricultural potential of the country can also be explored to export advantage.
Experts have expressed worry that the country’s agriculture accounts for 40.2% of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), by far surpassing wholesale and trade put at 17.3% while oil and gas sector records 15.3%, yet extremely poor and hungry fellows, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) survey, remain the vast majority.
Expectedly, agriculture in the estimation of Civil Society Coalition for Poverty Eradication (CISCOPE), is the single largest contributor to the welfare of the rural poor, sustaining about 86% of the rural household in Nigeria.
This percentage distribution of working population by activity in the 36 federating states including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja shows that Benue State has a working population of 76.6% in the agriculture sector being the highest in the country with Lagos depicting the lowest at 2.5% only.
The findings, the coalition in a recent one-day training of journalists on development reporting stressed the fact that agriculture remains a dominant force in the economy of the nation despite its continuous neglect by past and present governments.
While many Nigerians live below the expense of $2 dollars per day, there exists an army of unemployed youth roaming the streets coupled with insecurity, climate change, excessive flooding and drought to mention a few.
Sadly, the country still grapples with third highest ranking maternal deaths in the world only after India and South Africa. It is frightening however to note that, 60,000 women die annually in Nigeria from pregnancy-related causes.
It is also not surprising that the dreaded HIV/AIDS indices in Nigeria, particularly among women and girls still stands on an alarming rate; not because government is not doing much to address the issue, perhaps, a fundamental approach is rather necessary to tackle the menace from its root.
These irritating issues are in no small measure tied to direct and indirect absence of sources to generate income that can cater for a family’s livelihood due to high unemployment among working age bracket which means that the development of the agricultural sector to attain food security, create jobs and alleviate poverty cannot be over emphasized as embedded in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) number one.
In the past, government had evolved several means to reduce poverty rate in the country with intervention projects such as; the formation of National Poverty Eradication Programme, (NAPEP), National Directorate of Employment (NDE) and Community and Social Development Agency (CSDA) among others.
The expectation of these bodies was meant to engage more proactive ideas to address poverty challenges, especially at the grassroots where most of the people relied on subsistent farming for a living and to earn their income.
The birth of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was yet another avenue for the country to thrive harder in partnership with other nation’s of the world to militate against grave concerns which indeed have continued to threaten most African countries.
The MDGs document which contained eight fundamental goals, no doubt is supposed to be the most successful anti-poverty push in Nigeria considering conditional grant scheme support from the international community.
But people have continued to worry based on the fact that 1000-day mark to the 2015 target for the achievement of the MDGs, issues such as extreme hunger, access to education, improved sanitation, maternal health, gender inequality and HIV/AIDS are yet to record significant successes in the country.
Experts in their own estimation think if government shifts its focus from the over-dependence on oil being the nation’s major economic stay to give attention to other areas of its source of income such as agriculture and harnessing of its natural resources, it would have cure instead of treating symptoms to the poverty situation bedevilling the people.
Such paradigm shift, they have maintained would have the capacity to tackle the entire challenges headlong with the sole diversification of its national focus from Niger Delta’s oil to the age long agriculture which the country relied to generate its finances before the advent of crude, the mainstay of its economy today.
It is this challenge that recently propelled the Benue State government to facilitate a research carried out by ESFAJ and Partners to determine whether the teeming jobless youth who formed a reasonable proportion of the population in the state are actually interested in agriculture.
The result of the findings in all the 23 local government areas of the state showed 73% of youths in the state as actively involved and interested in agriculture but that the government is not doing enough to encourage active participation of young people in the sector.
The findings also revealed that the youths get little or no support from government despite evidences that the state has huge potential to transform the country’s food security positively only if government gives adequate attention to the sector.
Simi Fajemirokun, a senior partner of the firm that made presentation of the three months’ research done in 102 wards comprising of three senatorial districts of the state also revealed that 50% of secondary school leavers engage in farming against less than 30% of graduates who show interest in agriculture.
The research also indicated a highest participation of youths within the ages of 15 and 35 involved in farming activities just 79% of the young people in the state believed that government is performing below expectation in the agricultural sector as only 10% of the total fund required is currently committed to the sector.
Unarguably, Nigeria is blessed with arable land, with its prospect as the largest producer of cassava, yam and beans – stable food in Africa, the country can emerge from being a food deficit nation which imports large amount of grain product annually to meet its food need to produce food crop even at export quantity.
This can be possible following the estimated 71 million hectares of arable land largely still underutilized for production while only 7% of irrigable land is covered presently. If government invests heavily to provide rural roads impeding the marketing of agricultural produce which prevents farmers from selling at reasonable prices to avoid spoilage, majority of the poor rural dwellers will earn a living without stress.
Moreover, if the farmers have unlimited accessibility to sources of inputs, equipment and new technology to keep their yields high, it would only be a matter of few years, the yearnings of the MDGs will leave no one in doubt that after all, it is better to teach someone to fish rather than to give him fish.