Egbe, like most rural communities in Nigeria, has not made much progress in improving livelihoods, rural infrastructure or the quality of life of rural dwellers since Nigeria’s independence in 1960. You are twice as likely to be poor if you live in rural Nigeria as you are if you live in urban Nigeria.
And yet, Nigeria’s rural areas are a lush paradise, where crops, livestock, vegetables and fruits are produced in abundance to feed the cities.
As a young child in the early 1970s, my parents drove two or three times a year from Kainji, New Bussa-currently in Niger State-where I was born and lived until I went to high school in Egbe, to Ibadan, Oyo State, to shop for school supplies and Christmas and to visit friends and relatives.
There was a town called Fiditi between Oyo and Ibadan that was known for its abundance of fruits. We always stopped there to buy fruits and foodstuffs for acquaintances in Ibadan and for ourselves on our way home. The same could be said of many towns along the Ilorin-Ibadan highway.
So why are communities that produce abundant food languishing in excruciating poverty despite the strong and growing markets of a populous and rapidly growing country?
The answer is all around us across the entire continent.
African agriculture suffers from low productivity-often only about one-third of the global average for many crops-and is disconnected from processing hubs and packing houses because of weak value-added chains. Farmers face a lack of reliable energy, digital connectivity, rural roads and storage infrastructure. They depend heavily on imported seeds and blended fertiliser and have limited access to the right forms of credit to purchase increasingly expensive inputs. Farmer extension services remain weak, and investment in value addition is inadequate.
The case of farm inputs is particularly troubling. Africa produces about 30 million tonnes of the nutrients needed by crops-nitrogen, primarily as urea; phosphate; and some potash-but imports about 12 million tonnes of blended fertiliser such as NPK and DAP, representing roughly 80 percent of the continent’s needs. This exposes African farmers to every imaginable shock suffered by global supply chains, from COVID-19 to the Russia-Ukraine war and the Iran crisis and blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Fertiliser prices have tripled for farmers, especially following changes in exchange rates, while crop prices have fallen sharply in some markets over the past two years, partly because of food imports that are not tied to local production.
Given such conditions, agriculture cannot function as a viable business. It becomes a way of life, with grinding poverty as the outcome.
The cotton paradox
Let me use a single example of the impossible odds that farmers in rural Nigeria face. I will use cotton in West Africa, a value chain for which the region and Nigeria are well known.
West Africa has an estimated 4,000 garment industries and SMEs making clothes, but just 51 ginning and spinning mills. Compare that with Bangladesh-approximately 4,000 garment industries but 250 ginning and spinning mills.
The paucity of ginning, spinning and weaving capacity means that the region’s production of about 1.1 million tonnes of raw cotton lint is exported 90 per cent as raw lint, at a total value of about $1 billion.
The continent, in turn, imports more than 60,000 tonnes of fabric valued at $2 billion and, in the process, exports half a million jobs.
But the region can potentially earn $5 billion if the major value chain gap can be closed: converting lint into yarn and then fabric through a regional value chain, while creating approximately 500,000 jobs.
That is the difference between producing a commodity and building an industry.
Back to Egbe: Turning agriculture into businesses and jobs
Going back to Egbe, how can agriculture create rural businesses and jobs that turn rural communities from places people leave into places where people can build prosperous lives?
We can borrow a leaf from the champions who have transformed communities elsewhere.
We can choose to invest not merely in the problems we see today but also in the institutions, infrastructure and economic opportunities that will change the trajectory of rural communities for generations to come.
But how do we do this?
First, the economic opportunities.
Egbe has five major opportunities-there are many more-for wealth creation based on its natural resources and the experiences of its people.
1. Vegetable and fish production
Vegetables and fish, especially catfish and tilapia, can be produced at the approximately 2,000-hectare Omi/Kampe irrigation scheme and in other inland valleys.
The opportunity extends beyond production. With the right investment, Egbe can develop an integrated value chain encompassing fish production, vegetable farming, irrigation, cold storage, transportation, packaging and market distribution.
2. Rice production
Rice production is another major opportunity at the 2,000-hectare Omi/Kampe irrigation scheme and other inland valleys.
There is already a 36,000-tonne rice mill at Ejiba that is underutilised.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply to produce rice. It is to organise production at sufficient scale and reliability to support processing capacity and connect farmers to profitable markets.
3. Tree-crop farming and sustainable agroforestry
Tree-crop farming, especially cashew, oil palm, cocoa and timber, offers another significant opportunity.
The indiscriminate logging of rosewood, the red-coloured timber, from the area and its shipment in container loads to China represents not only environmental deforestation but also a lost economic opportunity.
Egbe could instead develop a sustainable agroforestry industry combining responsible timber production, reforestation and commercial tree crops.
The objective should be to create wealth from the forest without destroying the resource on which future generations will depend.
4. Crop-Livestock Farming
Crop-livestock farming offers another opportunity: producing cassava, maize and soybean to support the fattening of goats, sheep and poultry for local consumption and for markets in surrounding cities and states.
This integrated approach can improve productivity while creating multiple income streams for farmers.
Crop residues can support livestock, while livestock manure can contribute to soil fertility. Rather than treating crop and livestock production as separate activities, farmers can build an interconnected agricultural system.
5. Agro-industrialisation
The fifth and perhaps most transformative opportunity is agro-industrialisation.
Vertical integration is at the heart of strong agricultural value chains. Agro-industry could begin with relatively simple infrastructure: packing houses for vegetables, drying kilns and cold-chain facilities for fish, sawmills for wood, oil mills for palm fruit, rice processing and storage facilities, and feed mills for livestock and poultry.
Given Nigeria’s dire need for energy and skilled employment, agro-processing is best clustered in an agro-industrial park within or near the town.
This concept had been tried before, not too far from Egbe, under Nigeria’s erstwhile minister of agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, but was discontinued under subsequent administrations.
The lesson is that good ideas need institutions capable of surviving changes in government.
From opportunity to reality
So how do we translate these opportunities into reality?
It requires capacity for efficient production-from modern food production technologies to mechanisation and agricultural extension. It requires a clearer overview of existing and planned investments in agro-processing and coordinated market information to help buyers and partners assess scale, supply reliability and value-chain governance.
There is also a dire need to mobilise longer-term, lower-cost capital and de-risking instruments for private-sector investors.
Technical-assistance grants are equally important to develop bankable projects and ensure access to credit for all actors across the value chains.
And then there is the elephant in the room: security.
The security of farms, processing plants and the lives of their owners and workers is fundamental in the face of banditry, kidnapping and criminality in the area.
It is a classic chicken-and-egg situation: no viable farms or businesses exist, so there is little investment in providing security. Yet without security, investors will not come.
I farmed cassava without problems for nearly a decade at Apaa, some 110 kilometres from Egbe toward Lokoja, and I had policemen and armed local vigilantes as my security solution.
There is a broader historical lesson here. In the western United States in the late 1800s, improvements in security, property protection, transportation and rural infrastructure helped create the conditions in which commercial agriculture could take root.