THE Federal Government’s latest agricultural reform blueprint, which targets the creation of 21 million full-time jobs and the lifting of 35 million Nigerians out of poverty through strategic investments in agriculture, is yet another ambitious attempt to position the sector as the engine of economic revival. Unveiled by Vice President Kashim Shettima during the FAO National and Sub-regional Hand-in-Hand Investment Forum in Abuja, the plan has once again ignited cautious optimism about the country’s ability to harness its vast agricultural potential.
According to the Vice President, the new policy framework will introduce a range of measures, from single-window platforms for land registration to the expansion of irrigation infrastructure, strengthening of agricultural credit systems, and mechanisation.
Ministers of Agriculture and Economic Planning, Abubakar Kyari, and Atiku Bagudu equally expressed confidence that Nigeria’s abundant arable land, large domestic market, and digital economy provide a fertile ground for investors and agribusiness growth.
International development partners, including the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the European Union, hailed the renewed focus on irrigation and agribusiness as a model for West Africa’s agricultural transformation. However, as inspiring as these reforms sound, Nigerians have heard similar promises in the past. For decades, successive administrations have launched lofty agricultural policies — Operation Feed the Nation, Green Revolution, the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, and most recently, the National Agricultural Growth Scheme — all aimed at achieving self-sufficiency and massive job creation. Yet, the country remains a net importer of food.
With over 30 million hectares of arable land underutilised, which is about seven times the size of the third-largest agricultural exporter, the Netherlands, Nigeria’s agriculture sector remains largely subsistence-based and poorly mechanised. Farmers, who should be the driving force of these reforms, are struggling with inadequate financing, limited access to modern inputs, poor storage and distribution systems, and the ever-present threat of insecurity. Without addressing the fundamental issue of security, all talk about agricultural prosperity and job creation remains wishful thinking.
Mechanisation remains another weak link in the chain. The government’s commitment to drive mechanised farming is commendable, but past efforts have often stopped at policy declarations without the corresponding investment in farm machinery, training, and maintenance facilities. Mechanisation goes beyond tractors, it includes irrigation systems, harvesters, dryers, and processing technologies that ensure efficiency and reduce post-harvest losses. The country continues to lose a large portion of its produce annually due to poor storage facilities, bad roads, and a lack of processing plants. Any serious agricultural reform must therefore be built around improving infrastructure, logistics, and value chain linkages.
There is also the issue of exports and diversification. Despite Nigeria’s massive agricultural potential, the country’s export profile remains narrow and heavily dependent on a few commodities such as cocoa, sesame seeds, and cashew nuts. By contrast, top agricultural exporters like Brazil and the European Union have diversified portfolios that include high-value processed products. The N1.7 trillion generated from agricultural exports in the first quarter of the year, while encouraging, is still far below potential. If the Federal Government hopes to truly transform the sector, it must focus not only on primary production but also on agro-processing, packaging, and international market competitiveness.
The new reforms should therefore go beyond speeches and high-level meetings. Implementation, monitoring, and continuity are what have always been lacking in Nigeria’s agricultural policy landscape. A single-window platform for land registration will be meaningless if land disputes and bureaucratic bottlenecks remain unresolved. Access to agricultural credit will continue to be elusive if lending institutions are not reformed to support smallholder farmers and cooperatives. Irrigation systems will not work if projects are abandoned halfway or mismanaged by contractors.
Nigeria’s agricultural future lies not in policies announced at conferences but in the deliberate, consistent, and accountable execution of those policies on the ground to ensure that the fields, not just the podiums, reflect the harvest of change.
