Why Nigeria imports $3 billion of food annually

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group Awareness Retreat and Training on Nuclear Estate Initiatives (NEI) ... has established that Nigeria's failure to operate agriculture as a science and to achieve high crop yields is responsible for the country's high dependence on food imports.

Nigeria spends over $3 billion on importation of basic food items annually in spite of the robust potential the country has to grow food crops.

Shadrack Madlion, executive director, Admiral Environmental Care, advised that to take Nigeria out of the woods, the country must introduce specialised fertilizers, automated irrigation systems, biotechnology research, improved seeds, fuel and stable electricity, and geographical information systems.

He said introduction of these technology inputs would bring about an increase in farm yields and will make farming more efficient and easier. Madlion said Nigerian agriculture "is still in its primitive stage" as portrayed by the yield and quality of the product of virtually all Nigerian agricultural units, be it plants, livestock, ponds, etc.

Said he: "We have an average yield of 200 litre/lactation as against 8000 litres of others; our first calving is four to five years as against 22- 23 months; carcass weight at three years is 100 kilogrammes as against 1000 kilogramme of other exotic stocks; rate of calving is two years interval as against eight months."

Other comparisons made include, among others, groundnut 300 kilogramme average yield per hectare as against 2700 kilogramme of a Turkish, Spanish or Egyptian farmer; onions average yield per hectare is four metric tonnes as against 120 metrics tonnes of Yemen farmers; tomatoes five metric tonnes as against 100 metric tonnes for an Israeli farm; rice average yield of 1.5 metric tonnes per hectare as against 20 metric tonnes of that of a Thai farmer from the same unit by multiple cultivation.

Madlion noted moreover that Nigeria was still engaged in peasant fishing instead of fish farming/aqua-culture.

Business Day Nigeria