NIGERIA AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENT & BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Introduction

Agriculture has continued to remain the basic foundation and strength to the Nigerian economy. This is in spite of its neglect for several decades upon the discovery of crude oil. The reason for this resilience is obviously because of the sector’s multi-pronged sub sector diversity and richness. It is this characteristic that sustained the nation and its people within the period of very poor political and economic governance.

In the last eightz years of democratic efforts, great attention has been turned towards the agricultural sector as the last economic hope of the country. This has attracted the focus of the private sector, the public sector and international investment community. Presently, several investment inquests (local and foreign) have been beamed on Nigerian agriculture because of its capacity for quick economic returns occasioned by the presence of some uncommon strengths and opportunities abounding in it.

The Nigerian Agricultural Investment Sub sectors

An overview of the agricultural sector in Nigeria could be taken from the climatic and ecological landscape that supports multiple agricultural enterprises through a large expanse of land all the year round. It has also an agricultural water resource band that is wide presenting opportunities for various forms of irrigated farming enterprise, just as its soil fertility levels and structure is high for agricultural purposes. In terms of human capital in agriculture, generally there is a preponderance of highly skilled and experience cheap farm labour which includes institutionally trained personnel. Another advantage the Nigerian agriculture has is a near monopoly supply of raw materials to existing and emerging industrial sector which is agricultural raw materials based. There is also a great domestic market for agricultural produce just as Nigeria is a key corridor for the sub-regional and European markets. All these put together, the Nigerian agriculture sector has the strength and wide opportunities to sustain any commercial scale of investments in it.

Specifically, Nigeria has four major sub sectors to which heavy investments could be made. These are crops, livestock and fishery, forestry production and agribusiness (processing, preservation/storage and marketing) for both commodities and agricultural services. Within each sub-sector are endless list of production and agribusiness/service opportunities.
In crops, there are over ten production classifications of commodities that are produced in Nigeria. These include cereals, root and tubers, grain legumes and vegetables. There are also oil seed crops, tree crops, fruits of various kinds (both tropical and exotic species) and sugar crops of different kinds. We also have fats and oils crops and others classified based on their use purely and entirely for industrial purposes. There is also a burgeoning horticulture industry based on the cultivation of landscaping farming using both local and exotic flowers and plants. Within each crops category is found as many as five to ten different crops which can sustain a long chain of production and agribusiness investments.

The same characteristics are also found in the Nigerian livestock and fishery sub sector. In fact the livestock alone industry has sustained the economic and food security quest of Nigeria by ensuring constant supply of dairy products, meat and meat products as well as the feed and agrochemical industry. These are multi-billion dollar investment areas, even at their underdeveloped stages. Today, beef is being processed and exported to the West African sub regional markets from Nigeria. Nigeria’s sheep and goat business is a gold mine just as the rabbit and special livestock like grass cutter, snail and mushroom farming are big investment businesses.

The fishery sub sector is also heavy and underexploited leaving a domestic demand supply gap of nearly 1million metric tones per annum. This gap is usually filled with importation of canned and frozen fish products. Nigeria however has great fishery resource potential that can support any level of fishing investment. Wit a coastline of 800km and an underexploited Exclusive Economic Zone of 256,000km2 supported by a 19,425 km2 brackish water, inland freshwater rivers, inshore fishery and the Lake Chad resource. These resource bases support pelagic (bonga fishes, sardines, etc), dermasal resources (shrimps, Barracuda, etc) and tuna fishing and processing. This is besides an aquaculture resource base all over the country which is already attracting investment from domestic and foreign investors especially those from South East Asia. This is mainly in large scale (integrated) Fish/Poultry farming. Another huge area that has not been touched is in large scale Brood stock Development and Fingerling production (Hatchery).

Under the forestry sub sector, Nigeria’s land area of 92.4 million hectares provides a total of 31.3million ha of forest area. Presently there is only 9.6 million ha of forest estates or 2% of the total. But Nigeria has about 490 commercially utilizable tree species, out of which only 100 is being exploited for wood-based and non-wood-based products. The Nigerian wood-based industry has capacity for exportable logs, fuel wood, poles (building, electrification and industrial projects), pulpwood, plywood and veneer. It is also raw material base for fibre board, paper board, toothpick, oven try strips, ceiling board, block board and particle board, as well as wood handle for several other industrial products.
The non-wood products are also export items such as Gum Arabic, tannins and glues as well as pharmaceutical and medicines, alcohols and animal yeast and mushrooms.

Investment Climate

It is important to state that Nigeria’s investment terrain has since become foreign investor friendly. This has come about by the effective implementation of market led development strategies which has seen macroeconomic management tailored to support the growth of private sector and encourage investment inflow into the economy.