Agriculture As A Road To Wealth Creation

In the 1950s and 1960s,
agriculture played important role in economic development of Nigeria. The various regional governments of 1940s encouraged agriculture. In the West, Cocoa was produced and exported through the cocoa Marketing Board to foreign countries . Cocoa earned a lot of money for the Western region and the Federal Government.
In the northern part of Nigeria, groundnut, hides and skin were produced largely in Kano and other towns and villages. In the East, oil palm was produced and exported to foreign countries like Britain and France. Agriculture employed over sixty per cent of Nigerians.
When crude oil export started with the completion of oil refinery at Eleme in Rivers State, crude oil became the black gold. Many states focused on oil money and abandoned agriculture.
In the 1970s, oil revenue increased and the government failed to encourage mechanized farming. With a windfall in oil revenue from 2013 – 2014, the Federal Government refocused on agriculture for production and export of farm produce.
It is time to encourage agriculture because with mechanized agriculture, we can produce large quantity of produce like rice, beans, yam, groundnuts, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, kola nuts maize, melon, millet, oil palm, plantain, banana rubber, sorghum, sesame etc. Cassava can be processed into many products like starch, garri, animal feeds etc, while cocoa beans can be processed into coffee, tea, by indigenous entrepreneurs. Beans can be bagged and exported to foreign countries and yam can be exported to other African countries.
Individuals and various government can also encourage the planting of oil palm, plantain, soyabeans and banana. Rice, plantain and banana are grown in loamy soil that is common in southern part of Nigeria. Also, the government can also focus on rearing of animals, making sure that there are ranches to keep these animals in order to avoid grazing problems that has been alarming in the country.
The government should also provide fishing troullers where fishes can be trained in mass and exported to other countries. These fishes can be canned and exported, the animals also can be canned while the remains of the animals such as the skin, hides can be used to produce things like leather bags, shoes, gums etc. Its dung can be used as manure to grow crops instead of using chemical manures that blot the crops and make it manure before its time, thereby making the produce to be rotten sometimes and harmful to human health.
Agriculture can make Nigeria to diversify its economy ie a shift in monoculture economy from over reliance on crude oil especially at a time when the oil price is falling, thus having devastating effects on the economy. If the proper investments are made in the agricultural sector, the current contributions being made to the economy by this sector can be doubled or even tripled because Nigeria has both human and natural resources to achieve this potential.
Agriculture will help in the provision of food and raw materials to the Nigerian population and the development of manufacturing sector, respectively. This will bring about the building of infant industries where agricultural outputs can be processed, refined and produced by indigenous Nigerians, thereby creating job opportunities for graduates and young school leavers.
Nigeria today imports virtually everything including rice, toothpick, of which Nigeria is capable of producing in mass for the consumption of her citizenry as well as exporting it. This is a big shame and embarrassment to Nigeria because other African countries look up to her.
The present administration under President Muhammadu Buhari, has banned the importation of rice, frozen fishes and other items into the country. This is a welcome development to start with. But the question is, with the ban on importation of these items, what is the populace going to feed on especially against the backdrop of the fact that the agricultural sector does not have a firm footing yet?
The Federal Government has to make sure that infrastructures are put in place, industries should be built so that young entrepreneurs could engage themselves in agricultural activities which will curb the effects of rural-urban migration and for the rural people to engage in agriculture, which will help to decongest the urban areas and make life easier for people both in the urban and rural areas. It will also help the government to make more effect in developing the degrading infrastructural facilities and Hius ease movement of goods from one location to the other.
Developing the agricultural sector will also help in improving other sectors and thereby curbing the level of the existing corruption in the country.
The importance of agriculture to the Nigeria economy as to wealth creation cannot be overemphasized. Therefore, the bulk of work lies in the hand of the government and entrepreneurs to take advantage of the enormous benefits that is in the agriculture sector.
Sam-Dekii is a student of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt.

Mina Sam-Dekii