Emergence of Nigeria Agri-Business Group, a plus!

  IT is not every day that government through Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) assemble business entrepreneurs, especially on issue pertaining to agriculture, so it was a welcome development that President Goodluck Jonathan, via the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) led by Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, pulled this kind of individuals together to spur investment under the aegis of Nigeria Agri-Business Group (NABG).
The essence, however, was to invariably consolidate on the achievements of the President’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), penultimate Monday, February 24, 2014, when this group was inaugurated as an Organised Private Sector (OPS) led-group.
NaijaAgroNet recalls that the Minister of Agriculture and the agribusiness thought leaders initially brokered a meeting in May 2013, when the industry committed to work with government to remove major constraints and barriers facing the agriculture and agribusiness industry in Nigeria.
Currently, there is no proven association in Nigeria that has such an inclusive group of members drawn from the agricultural value chain. And based on the understanding to work in partnership with FMARD, the NABG will catalyse sustainable growth of the country’s agricultural sector by continuing to treat agriculture as a business, not as government funded development project, lead, support and advocate in favour of institutional policy and regulatory reforms by working with the three tiers of government in Nigeria; federal, state and local governments.
This may not be unconnected from the recent calls by Nigerian business giants, for a better coordination and collaboration between ministries, departments and agencies of the Nigerian government, mostly with respect to agriculture trade and investments.
The NABG, comprised of about 20 foremost Nigerian agribusiness companies, including Dansa Foods, Okomu Oil, Chi Group, Cresta Group, Datti Fish, Olam and Wilbahi among others.
Addressing media in Abuja, Adesina said that the government had recognised the need for the emergence of such a group, to drive the ongoing regulatory and policy reforms in the spirit of the public-private sector synergy, stressing that the group will help to ensure that the ongoing reforms of the agriculture sector are protected and sustained.
“The Nigeria Agribusiness Group is a high-powered organised private sector groupcomprising of all value chain stakeholders from input suppliers to aggregators, foodprocessors, marketers and consumers. They will work closely with the government to improve further the business environment of agriculture,” Adesina told NaijaAgroNet.
NABG, he said, is anticipated to continue the trend in diversifying away from the one-dimensional oil and gas economy of Nigeria and build on the investment inertia of the agricultural sector; underscoring the need to engage the private sector to help drive and coordinate regulatory and policy reforms in the country.
The minister outlined the concrete achievements of the agricultural transformation programme to include the registration of 6.4 million farmers, noting that these farmers, had received fertiliser and seeds allocation via their mobile phones through the electronic system known as the e-wallet, the first of its kind in Africa.
Adesina also said that through the innovative system, fertiliser fraud which characterised the previous government subsidy regime, had been eliminated while enhancing the food security of 30 million rural farm households. Just as seed companies had expanded from 11 to 77 and 3,000 small and medium agribusinesses in the input supply chain established.
“Local fertiliser manufacturing and blending capacity has significantly expanded with five billion dollars in new investments. We have received a total of over $4billion in executed Letters of Intent (LOIs) for investments by 30 private sector agribusinesses. We haveestablished relationships with over 150 agribusinesses in Nigeria,” Adesina delightedly disclosed.
Notwithstanding these achievements, the minister outlined some critical challenges impacting on the agriculture sector as revealed by an independent survey to include infrastructure, financing, supply and government regulations, tax and policies.Others, according to him, are human capital, security and government coordination.
He pointed out that the establishment of Staple Crops Processing Zones recently would help address the infrastructure gap and add about N1.4 million to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as well as create approximated 250,000 jobs across the nation.
“Cargill, the world’s number one food company will be investing N33 billion to setup cassava-to- starch and cassava-to-sweetner manufacturing plants,” he declared.
In order to address the financing challenge, Adesina revealed that the ministry, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and the German Development Bank had established the Fund for Agricultural Financing (FAFIN).
“The fund is a private equity and quasi-equity and debt fund, which will deploy 100 million dollars in long-term finance to agri-business and provide financing of two million to five million dollars to qualifying agribusinesses,” he asserted.
On land issues, the minister told NaijaAgroNet that the ministry was working with state governments to secure land for genuine investors, expressing confidence that the group, being independent, would articulate the position of private sector agribusiness on policies, legal and regulatory environments and that the food import bill would continue to decline.
NABG, he said, is expected also to organize and host agribusiness and investment conferences annually.
“The intent is for these forums to become the Grow Africa and World Economic Forum voices to attract global investors and build competition among investors in the agricultural sector of our economy,” said Dr. Adesina, pointing out that Nigeria’s agribusiness growth performance is real, as there have been favourable shifts towards investments in agriculture and agribusiness by Nigerian owned businesses.
He revealed that notable Nigerian-owned agribusinesses account for over 50 per cent of the $4 billion investment commitments under the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in the country.
Responding on behalf of the group, its interim chairman, Alhaji Sani Dangote of Dansa Foods Division of Dangote Group, described the ongoing transformation programme as laudable and the establishment of the group as a landmark effort that would stimulate the agri-business sub-sector.
He also said that under the platform of the group which brings together all private sector companies in agribusiness as well as farmers, ideas on the best way forward would be harnessed and presented to the government.
“This group will drive inclusive market growth, representing the interests of farmers, aggregators, input providers, supply chain management, food processing, marketing and consumers,” Alhaji Dangote said.
He assured of the group’s readiness to engage with government agencies positively, with a view to ensuring best practice and give the right advice in order to attract morelocal and foreign investment into the agriculture sector.
For Mr. Emmanuel Ijewere of Best Foods, “The NABG is expected to help sustain the investment inertia of ATA,” expressing optimism that the group will live up to expectations.


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