Nigeria may be known to the outside world as a major oil producer, but the mainstay of its economy is actually agriculture. Although petro-dollars account for 98 per cent of national revenue, the agriculture sector employs more than 70 per cent of our population. Close to three decades of oil wealth has not changed this equation. With this huge percentage of our people engaged in agriculture, you may however wonder why Nigeria has over the years come to rely heavily on food imports. A simple overview of agricultural practices in Africa's most populous nation will not only explain this paradox; it will also provide the clue as to why most people in our oil-rich nation live below the poverty line.

Nigeria has a total land area of 92.4 million hectares and 91 million of this is suitable for cultivation but only about half of it is put to use for both staple and industrial crops. And because they rely on age-old practices, a majority of the people engaged in agriculture are grossly under-employed and indeed under-productive.

The average farm size in Nigeria ranges between 1-2 hectares. The average farmer in Nigeria lacks any form of formal education and he lacks basic management skills or ability to learn from new technologies or existing best practices. He relies on obsolete implements and constantly waits on the rain for farming. Because he lacks education, he is unable to access funds and therefore relies on government for subsidies on major farm inputs like seedling, fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals.

Reports also indicate that up to 70 per cent of the various agricultural credit schemes offered by banks, especially the Central Bank of Nigeria and even the National Agricultural Commerce Bank which had the capacity to provide the level of funding required to achieve significant growth in the sector are under-drawn or not drawn at all because the farmers cannot meet the banks' conditionality. The net result of all these is that agriculture in Nigeria is grossly under-funded and has failed to attract any serious private sector involvement.

Nigeria's agriculture therefore points to a gross record of under-performance. A recent FAO estimates shows that the average yield for maize in Nigeria is between 0.9 to 1 tonne per hectare. In India, the yield is 1.8 per hectare; in Zimbabwe,3.0; Pakistan,1.7; China, 4.7; and the USA, 8.5 tonnes per hectare. Whereas the average yield for rice in Nigeria is 1.2 tonnes per hectare, in India, it is 2.9; Pakistan,3.0; China, 6.3; Egypt, 8.1; Vietnam, 4.2 and U.S.A, 7.0. The yield per hectare for groundnut in Nigeria is 1.08; whereas in China, it is 3.1 and in the U.S.A, 3.2 tonnes per hectare.

Apart from yield per hectare, Nigeria performs poorly in overall level of crop production when compared with many other countries. While Nigeria's annual rice production stands at an average annual of 3,219,333 metric tonnes (paddy rice), Vietnam's is at 31,949,000; Bangladesh produces an annual average of 35,021,000; Thailand, 24,933,000; and China, 190,577,000. this means that Nigeria produces only 10% of Vietnam's rice; 9% of Bangladesh's; 12.9% of Thailand's and 1.68% of China's annual rice production.

Nigeria's production record for other crops when compared with that of other major producers in the world follows the same pattern as for the two crops cited above. Some of the factors mentioned earlier are implicated in this low productivity. However, experience from other countries has shown that our poor level of irrigation development and post-harvest management are major contributory factors to low agricultural productivity in Nigeria.

The logical consequence of what was submitted above in terms of low yield and productivity is Nigeria's heavy reliance on food import. Food importation constitutes an estimated 14.5 per cent of Nigeria's import bill. Our country spends about $2 billion annually in importing food items. Recent reports show that each year, Nigeria spends $132 million on importation of milk; $400 million on wheat; $200 million on poultry, especially frozen chicken; and $756 million on rice. Nigeria also imports about 95 million metric tonnes of sugar annually.

Since it returned to democracy mid-1999, Nigeria has however worked very hard to reform her economy and remove the national paradox of “rich country; poor people”. The Federal Government under President Olusegun Obasanjo introduced a package of reforms aimed at stimulating growth across the various sectors of the economy and thereby reducing our dependence on crude oil as a foreign exchange earner. The debt relief granted us last year by the Paris Club offers us an historic opportunity to build our infrastructure. The reform programme is all-encompassing. In the agriculture sector, which is seen as offering the safest route out of our poverty trap, a series of Presidential Initiatives on specific crops such as rice and cassava have been introduced to improve productivity.

Broadly cast, the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) seeks to reduce food import to 5% of total imports by 2007 and raise agricultural export value to $3 billion by that year. To achieve this bold objective however, it is clear that we have to make a step-change in our agricultural practices and move away from subsistence to mechanized operations.
This is exactly what we have focused our attention on in Kwara State over the past few years and which has today made us the number one focal state in driving the NEEDS agriculture policy.

Located in the North Central Region of Nigeria, Kwara State has a substantial cultivable area representing 75.3% of total land area of about 2,447,250 hectares. The vegetation consists mainly of rainforest and wooded savannah. The land consists of undulating hills, valleys and plains, which are watered by the River Niger and its tributaries. The average annual rainfall ranges from 1,000-1,500mm, while maximum temperature ranges between 30C to 35C. With this climatic pattern and size-able expanse of arable and rich fertile soil, the vegetation is well suited for the cultivation of a wide variety of food crops like yam, cassava, maize, beans, rice, sugarcane, a wide array of fruits and vegetables.

Since 2003, we have focused strongly on achieving equitable development in Kwara State. We have tried to reduce poverty, improve human development standards and create the right environment and structures for investments. This has challenged executive capacities to break new grounds and create innovative strategies. It has also compelled a redefinition of the role of government as a facilitator and promoter of economic development by directing investments and interventions in high impact sectors.

The Government is however convinced that no other sector has as much potential to drive poverty reduction initiatives and jump-start economic development like agriculture. And it is in agriculture that Kwara State wishes to carve its niche in both national and international economy. Our vision is to lead the way in changing Nigeria's reliance on imported food, especially poultry, milk and other diary products by making Kwara State a net producer of food, agricultural and Agro-allied products both for the huge domestic market and for export.

Having studied the outstanding success of commercial agriculture in Zimbabwe, we reached out to some of the farmers who had been displaced by the land reform exercise of that country and succeeded in bringing a group of 15 of them to Kwara State to pioneer our commercial agriculture initiative. This initiative started last year on 15,000 hectares of land in an area at the bank of the River Niger. The local community has warmly embraced the project because of the opportunity it offers them to piggy back on the expatriate commercial farmers and learn from them new farming skills and techniques.
The development of local agricultural initiatives by small – scale farmers especially on rice, cashew and cassava is also a major focus of the State's agriculture policy alongside the commercial agriculture initiative. One of the approaches has been to make agriculture attractive and provide employment to youths through the establishment of a Youth Farm Centre, where 100 youths are camped under the tutelage of one of the Zimbabwean farmers. These youths plant maize, soya, rice and cassava on a 100 hectare farm land.

The Kwara State time bound Action Plan on Cassava in collaboration with the IITA is built on the Nigerian Presidential Special Initiative (NPSI) on cassava and it is meant to build up yield and develop processing capacity in the State. Under this action plan, we have set up demonstration and seed multiplication farms in each of our 3 Senatorial Districts. We have also set up the Market Information Service System to facilitate information sharing with existing and potential farmers.

Again, following the Presidential Initiatives on Increasing Rice Production, rice production in the State has been revolutionise by ensuring the first ever dry season rice harvest in Duku Lade, in collaboration with the Vee Tee Rice of India. The main objective of this is to make local rice growers take advantage of the Federal policy on self-sufficiency in rice production by 2006.

The initiative on rice is built on the State's irrigation scheme in Duku – Lade. This irrigation facility was built by the First Republic Government of Northern Region in 1963. The project was however abandoned, until the present Government revived it in 2004. It was by rehabilitating the scheme that the 200 hectare of first dry season harvest was achieved in May 2005. The irrigation scheme has an installed capacity to cover 4000 hectares.

All these schemes are intended to complement the huge potentials of the commercial agriculture initiative and to broaden the base for participation by local farmers. The Government recognizes that it is only when agricultural production is radically increased to a level that would allow easy linkage with allied economic activities like production, collection, storing, transportation, processing, packaging, weighting and even reselling can agriculture be used to drive other development objectives.
Therefore, while efforts are made to organize, support and mobilise local peasant farmers for large scale production, a major step-change would be achieved through the commercial agriculture that is also programmed to have multiple trickle down effects in raising the standards in peasant farming practices.
The Kwara State Commercial Agriculture Initiative is intended to generate substantial marketable surplus in food and cash crops that will encourage the development and expansion of local agri-processing and agricultural exports, while at the same time providing farm extension activities designed to transfer knowledge and techniques into the small scale subsistence farming sector.

It is projected that investment in dairy production alone will yield up to 5 million litres of milk per annum (pa) and will take care of domestic needs which is currently characterised by shortfalls, high prevailing prices, and the importation of up to 98% of domestic consumption.

It is also projected that production of broiler chickens would yield 125,000 broiler hens, pa; dry land rice at 15,000 metric tonnes p.a, and irrigated rice at 8,500 metric tonnes p.a.

With all these, projected growth in dairy output in Kwara State alone, excluding growth in other sectors (rice, maize and poultry) will generate a potential $21 million saving in foreign exchange outflow (20% of total whole milk import by Year 3), which will free up considerable potential development funds.

Quite significantly, it is projected that the Zimbabwean farmers would be cash-positive in poultry and diary in the first 3 years, and would declare profit for mixed farming in the first 4 years. It is anticipated that total agricultural output will increase substantially over a 5 year period as production expands and the impact of improved farming methods and techniques are disseminated to the smallholder population through a planned agricultural extension programme.

After only the first season of planting, the success of this project has attracted widespread attention such that other states in Nigeria are adopting the initiative. It is envisaged that this year, we shall start exporting fruits and flowers from Kwara State to Europe. Already, we have put up a new terminal building at the international airport in our capital city of Ilorin, ahead of the commencement of cargo flight operations. We have also secured an agreement with a major international cargo airline to make the Ilorin International Airport its hub for the West African sub-region.

We are convinced from our experience in Kwara State that commercial farming, with the private sector as its core driver, is the future of agriculture in Nigeria. As the experience of Vietnam has demonstrated however, we have to make targeted investments in developing irrigation in Nigeria. The plan to restrict importation of rice by 2006 would pose a challenge to domestic production. If we must meet this challenge, we must prioritise irrigation development, not only in Kwara State but in other States of the country with the capacity of large scale farming. Development of large scale irrigation is beyond what government can carry, it would require major investments too by the private sector.