March 2012
Food importation: good or bad business?
BY OPEYEMI QUADRI
D
espite the abudance of fertile lands and favourable weather considered very good for agriculture in Nigeria, the country still ranks amongst the top three net importers of food items in the world, a situation some analyst have described as worrisome. According to the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the Federal Government spent over N99 trillion on the importation of food between 2007 and 2010. In his words, “Nigeria is now one of the largest food importers in the world. The food import bill of Nigeria in 2007 - 2010 was N98 Trillion or $628 billion. In 2010 alone, Nigeria spent N635 Billion on the import of wheat, N356 Billion on importation of Rice (that means we spent over N1 Billion per day on rice alone), N217 Billion on Sugar imports and with all the marine resources, rivers, lakes and creeks we are blessed with, Nigeria spent N97 Billion importing fish.” Alarming as the minister’s assertion might be some analyst have argued that the situation is not as bad as portrayed even though they reckon that Nigeria has to do more to be self sufficient on her food 74
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needs. An economist, Ayo Agbaje in his submission noted that as much as Nigeria is spending millions of dollars importing some food items, the country is also making as much in its export. “I don’t like the situation where people will want to base their analysis on just half trust. In the area of cereals, wheat, rice and the likes Nigeria has not gotten it right so we do more of importing but when it comes to items like corn we rank in the first 10 exporters in the world.” Sharing the same line of thought, an Agric Economist, Bamidele Kazeem notes that it is not enough to give the land mass and the favourable weather which many feel it is enough to drive local production as he reckons that farming has gone digital and that Nigeria still lags far behind. “This days farming is driven by technology and having the right breeds of product, in that sense Nigeria is moving at a slow speed. To reduce or out rightly phase out food importation, we have to get it right in this aspect.” For Mr Bamidele it will be wrong to label food importation as a good or bad business. “The food importers see a vacuum and they are helping in filling the
vacuum, if there was no shortage in supply locally, importation won’t have come up at all.” According to him, it will be unfair to say food importers might be sabotaging government efforts at improving local production of food. “It is not the same with the power sector that you can be talking of monopoly; it’s just a normal business venture, people seeing a vacuum and cashing in on it. For Mr Agbaje the onus is still on government to do the right thing by putting in place relevant policies that will motivate local food production. “Recently the government said it was giving waivers for importers to bring rice into the country. This process will take up to four to five months before it eventually comes into the country. Why do that when it would take the same number of months if it is grown in the country,” he said. However, the minister of Agric stated that “As minister of Agriculture working closely with the minister of state, we will never let the farmers of Nigeria down, we will revamp the agricultural sector, we will accelerate food production in clear and visible ways that will impact the lives of our people, and we will begin the hard www.myfinancialintelligence.com
3/14/2012 1:37:36 PM