Creating graduate agro-entrepreneurs
Increased funding and capacity development will enable more youths participate in various agriculture businesses worth billions of dollars
Vincent Achu (Not real names), who is a fish farmer in Masaka in Nasarawa State would have remained a subsistence farmer producing only for his family’s consumption. Now, thanks to training and funding he received his 1.3 hectares farmland yields at least 500 catfish monthly. This has improved his financial independence and family protein intake.
Achu’s turnaround began after he attended a seminar for fishing farming in Lagos, the country’s commercial capital; the trainers also provided funding for his expansion plans. With the funds, he now has big plans, hoping to diversify into other varieties of the aquaculture by procuring more tanks to accommodate other fish species such as salmon and tilapia and as well engage more hands. Above all, he talks eagerly about ‘fisheries value chain’.
In a time of inadequate white collar jobs, more youths are turning to farming for income and employment generation. The federal government said it created 1.6 million jobs in 2013, most of them in agriculture.
“Increased funding and capacity development will enable more youths participate in various agriculture businesses worth billions of dollars,” said James Ifekwe a private lawyer in Abuja.
There are numerous interventions by national and international organizations in agri-business which unemployed graduates can utilize. These programmes cover cassava, rice, sorghum, oil palm and other crops.
For instance the Federal Government recently secured a credit from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for the implementation of Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP).
This programme is to address constraints in cassava and rice value chain among farmers in Anambra, Ebonyi, Benue, Taraba, Niger and Ogun states. The major aim of the programme is to enhance sustainable incomes and food security for poor rural households engaged in production, processing and marketing of rice and cassava in those states.
Programmes such as this enhance employment opportunities for graduates by providing access to improved productive resources (including credit) and practical skills, better processing and increase in the number of SMEs and persons engaged in the agriculture value chain.
Specific interventions in these crops can create jobs and capacity in various stages of the processing chains. For instance, unemployed graduates can embrace the many skills and jobs that could emerge from cassava and its derivatives. From cassava you can derive flour, ethanol, chips, and cake businesses. Rice can create new businesses for ofada, parboilers, millers and marketers.
Graduate agri-business can stimulate direly needed small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country. There are three broad parameters in assessing SMEs. These are: micro-entities- those employing up to 10 persons; small companies- those companies that employ up to 50 workers and medium-sized enterprises who employ up to 250 workers.
SME has been identified as the engine of growth in most emerging economies of the world. Indeed, the developed economies in Europe, America, Asia and the Pacific also leveraged from the vitality of their small businesses and SME sector.
If entrepreneurship and practical skills is the foundation of SME development, then countries such as China, Brazi and South Korea –which have both in abundance- have used this to make their economy stronger and competitive. Economic analysts believe that South Korea recovered from the economic crises of 1999 through SME which accounted for 81.9 percent of its industrial employments.
For a country with 168 million, Nigeria needs to encourage SME development through entrepreneurship training and micro credits. Agriculture remains the most labour intensive and less technical sector that the country can leverage on to create a huge SME sector, especially going by an upsurge in interest by young graduates for self employment.
The minister of state for Trade and Investment, Dr Samuel Ortom recently announced federal government plans to create 3.5 million new jobs by 2015 through the agriculture value chain in production, processing and marketing.
Minister of Agriculture Dr Akinwumi Adesina recently said agriculture is a business, adding “We must treat it as such.” He said this in support of the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) new export development project that would help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country.
If Nigeria attains self-sufficiency in agriculture it will help reverse the importation of food currently being done in the country which affects the country’s foreign exchange adversely and as well create an active pool of job creators. In 2013, N1.3 trillion worth of food items were imported into the country.
The minister, whose Agriculture Transformation, hopes to cut these imports, said “our food imports are growing at an unsustainable rate of 11 per cent per annum thereby fuelling domestic inflation and increasing poverty.
“We are importing products that we can either produce in abundance like N356 billion worth of rice, N217 billion worth of sugar and N97 billion worth of fish.
“We are also importing products that we can easily find local alternatives, which can equally reduce our import bill of almost N635 billion being spent on wheat production.”
It is not enough for unemployed graduates to just give up and say nothing ever works in Nigeria, hundreds of young people for instance are currently benefitting from the YouWin empowerment programme of the Federal Government. Application for the third phase which initially ended last month but has been extended to early next week provides an opportunity for graduates with outstanding business ideas, especially in the agric sector to receive funding and mentorship to realise their potentials.