Agriculture is antidote to Nigerias  unemployment crisis, Aderohunmu

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/07/agriculture-is-antidote-to-nigeria%E2%80%99s-unemployment-crisis-aderohunmu/


The parlous state of Nigeria's economy is a reflection of the agricultural sector, according to Dr. Michael Aderohunmu, managing director of Dudu Investment and Business Research Centre Limited. Farm land He therefore wants government attention to be focused on agriculture and infrastructure to fast track the country’s  social economic development, in this interview with  Akoma Chinweoke The agricultural sector which used to be the mainstay of the nations economy has been adversely affected since the discovery of oil. How do you think the sector could be revived to check the escalating unemployment problem in the country? The are two major areas that we should look at. One is commitment . It is the commitment of the Malaysian government to grow their economy locally based on their strength and one of  their strength is agriculture. So, what Malaysia has been able to achieve was to do a kind of elevation to its agricultural processing by adding value. In those days, produce like rubber and palm kernel that left Nigeria for Malaysia cannot be  referred to as they used to be because they have been able to apply technology based on their commitment to develop agriculture. So, they were able to add value through the supply chain. What I mean by adding value is that , you take a product like cassava or palm kernel for instance from farming to export, there are lots of value that have been added there in terms of production, transportation, processing and exporting. We have a lot of specialists that are working there. Each one of them is a cluster that can be developed for new business and contribute enormously to employment and  income generation. These were commitments from Malaysian government to see that the small scale industries working around the manufacturing sector add value to the produce such that even the farmers generate a lot of income from that and then that becomes part of its national strategy for agricultural development . So, what is important now for Nigeria is to focus on our strength by getting the banking sector to support the whole sector of the economy. The mainstay for Nigeria’s economy as it is now is agriculture though it is yet to be . So, there must be government commitment in that sector. There must be government pronouncement and national strategy on agricultural development, on how to develop the sector to create employment for the young ones, create new business and entrepreneurial skills with specialists to see that there is value addition. These are the areas that need to be addressed.  Again in the area of infrastructure, we need to look into the issues like roads, access to farm, since to bring the produce from the farmland to the factory, you need good road. So, infrastructure cuts across every sector of the economy. I don’t want to dwell too much on that because  everybody knows. I want to dwell on what can create employment in our country. We need to bring some innovative approach into that. The high rate of unemployment has forced youths in the country into kidnaping and other crimes as a means of earning a living. What could be done to make agriculture an attractive venture  for our youths? I just came from a World Bank summit where I participated in global innovation policy in Washington. Nigeria was represented by three of us  and people from various parts of the world were there  in the World Bank headquarters to focus on innovations in various aspects which include the policies, quality and the economy, among others. In our case, we need to reformulate ideas on how to make sure that our youths are well employed and one area that I focused on was agriculture. Agriculture offers so many solutions to unemployment and isolation of young ones that are engaged in non-productive activities. Bringing innovation into agriculture means working along with specialists in terms of research and development, formulating a policies that would give us new access to information, marketing, production and then create an avenue whereby these young ones can be employed by exposing them to training , access to skill development that are related to farming, Also, we need to work with specialized organizations and all stakeholders to see that something is really done in terms of moving the economy forward. Today, agriculture employ almost 65-70 percent of our population and that is where we should focus on. I believe that there should be a strategy to develop agriculture in every state and local government so that we can create alternative revenue to oil industries  and employ people. Malaysia developed agriculture before they went into other sectors . Palm oil  has become third or fourth revenue earner for the country while electronics is its number one revenue earner.  They were able to jump from agriculture to electronics because they were able to create a kind of education background based on agriculture that gives is entrepreneurial skill and development locally and then from their graduate to hi-tech . Malaysia is the fastest ITC growing country in the  world today but their basic social economic development was based on agriculture. Even in the western world, before there was industrial revolution, there was agricultural revolution. So, we really need to pay serious attention to that sector as we have so much vast land that can be developed for agriculture. One of the things that we discussed in the World Bank seminar was how to bring innovation into agricultural development to formulate new access to market both local and international through improvement of production and services in the sector. If every state does that, things would be different and there are people here that would offer their quota to see that Nigeria is well  recognized globally in terms of agriculture. We have a template to make every local , state, and the country prosper in agriculture. Government should focus on developing agriculture; we have capable Nigerians that can make this happen to move Nigeria forward. The country has over the years continued to experience delay in budget passage and poor implementation if eventually passed as a large portion is spent on paying salaries of government officials. Is that ideal for an economy aspiring to be great? If the country is spending most of the budget and appropriation on salaries and the rest and there is no capital project, there is no way we can generate additional revenue . What we are talking about is that it is time for us to begin to look for an alternative way of creating additional revenue. We can’t be living on rent. This crude oil money which we have focused all our attention on is not even for Nigeria but for international oil producers. Nigeria like we all know earns rent as one of the producers and this rent is not enough to cater for all what we need for the socio-economic development of the country . So there must be a way to create another avenue to generate income, that is,  there must be a kind of budget appropriation for capital projects, particularly in the areas that can support the economy  which are the real sector, agriculture and education. So, when there is delay, of course we have already defeated the purpose because everything goes with time. Again, we need to find out why there is delay and why it is being done repeatedly as it is what the present and past administrations inherited from the military structure by delaying the budget and applying it towards the end because we never had what we can call economic planning . Planning goes with budget. Many have continued to criticize the Federal Government  plan to allocate N6.6 billion to mark the country’s 50th independence anniversary. What is your view on that? For some of us that are so consistent and concerned about development, what do you celebrate? Is it because the level poverty is increasing by the day or that Nigeria’s population of 1960 has increased by how many percentage and yet none of them can be serviced in terms of basic  education, shelter, electricity supply. So, we need to know what we want to celebrate. For some of us that want to appropriate the resources that are available to us to something we can refer to, I will not go for that. I will rather use my money to get good education for the mass population of our children that are growing today, iinvest the money in profitable areas that can enhance the lifestyle and the quality of education of because if you don’t develop your agriculture and education, you are not going to be represented in the global village that we are talking about which means global market and global market means production that you need  to showcase at that global market. This cannot be done without basic foundation. We have been here for fifty years, this is what we have not been able to achieve, October 1, we would be fifty, October 2 we would be 50+1, we would like to see what would be the agenda as tomorrow would come and go.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/07/agriculture-is-antidote-to-nigeria%E2%80%99s-unemployment-crisis-aderohunmu/