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The Agricultural Sector As The Key To The Diversification Of The Nigerian Economy For Sustanable Development
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The programs only succeeded in
creating and raising the awareness to diversify the economy through
agriculture and the catalytic and leading role the private sector must
play in agricultural development which renewed a general interest in
agriculture. Despite its huge potentials, the country is a net importer
of food. The nation’s food import basket is made up of items which can
be produced locally in sufficient amount. In addition, the economy is
characterized by price volatility and high prices due to over dependence
on rain-fed agricultural output. Some of the problems faced by
agricultural sector include; Under-investment, low productivity,
inadequate input, poor and rudimentary storage culture, unfavourable
exchange rate policy among others. In addition, (Adesina, 2011), posited
that only 1% of total lending in banking sector goes to agriculture
despite the fact that the sector accounts for about 70% of employment
opportunities and 44% of the Nation’s GDP. The promotion of capitalist
agricultural development in Nigeria led to heavy reliance on imported
agricultural inputs from the core capitalist countries from 1970 to
1979, while the imported agricultural inputs increased, there were no
visible increase in both food and cash crop production .The rise in the
importation of agricultural inputs went hand in hand with the rise in
food imports, food shortages and negative output of cash crops. The poor
performance records of the agriculture in the face of massive imported
agricultural inputs imply that the strategy must be faulty and the
solutions anticipated misconceived (Akor, 2009).
According to
(Sanusi, 2011), Nigeria is incurring a total food import bill of
$4.2billion about N638.4billion annually due to the neglect of
agriculture and partly due to insatiable appetite of Nigerians for foods
not locally produced. For instance, Nigeria is the only country in the
world that does not produce wheat and yet consumes 100% wheat bread.
According to Okojie & Mike (2006), the relationship between export
performance and economic growth has been a subject of considerable
interests to development economists especially those who believe that
economic growth should be sustained and maintained. Chenery &
Strout, (1994) asserted that for a long time, there was hardly any
country which exhibited sustained economic growth rate higher than its
growth of exports. They also claimed that growth rates of individual
developing countries correlate better with their export performance than
with any other single economic indicator.
Nigerian government at
different times have formulated and implemented several agricultural
policies aimed at addressing the myriads of problems confronting the
sector and ensuring food availability and foreign exchange earnings for
the country. However, for a policy to have a meaningful impact, it must
have strategies (that is, programs or projects) geared towards the
accomplishment of specific objectives and the ultimate goal of the
policy. To this extent, various policy programs and projects have been
initiated in Nigeria. Some of these policy programs recorded substantial
success while some were huge failures. Similarly, Offiong, (1980)
opined that the general obstacles that has frustrated the African match
towards economic freedom remained imperialism and dependency. Another
impact of imperialism is seen through the process of making and unmaking
leaders .As illustrated by Onimode, (1988) “there is no gain saying
that most coups carried out in the African continent were planned by the
colonial imperialist powers to achieve their purpose of dominanceâ€.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Nigeria
is yet to attain the ranks of a developed country due to lack of
structural changes among other factors. Also, it was observed that a
factor crucial to this lack of economic progress is the lack of economic
diversity which caused the economy to rely heavily on crude oil for
revenues and as a major export commodity in the economy (Osuntogun,
1997). Prior to the 1970’s, Nigeria’s exports were predominantly non-oil
commodities with agricultural commodities accounting for a lion share.
However, in the 1970’s when the price of crude oil in the international
market skyrocketed, the share of agricultural exports began to fall and
have remained low ever since. This is majorly due to the money spinning
nature of oil export which makes it more profitable to export oil and
less profitable to export non-oil commodities.
This has caused a
rather heavy dependence on the oil sector and the proceeds from
exportation of crude oil. This heavy reliance subjects the country to
difficulties when the price of crude oil, the major exports commodity is
low in the international market (as it is case presently). In light of
this, the government adopted various strategies to boost agricultural
exports and stabilize the economy. In spite of these efforts, the
performance and contributions of the agricultural sector has remained
low.
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