USAID program improving Nigerian food security

Despite its large land mass and ideal farming conditions, Nigeria still imports much of its food. But there are ongoing efforts to change that, says Tim Prewitt, managing director for Nigeria Markets, a USAID program focused on increasing the agricultural output in Nigeria.

Roughly 70 percent of people in Nigeria work, to some degree, in the agriculture industry, Prewitt says. However rice is imported from India and Thailand, which most livestock comes from Africa’s Sahel region. Wheat is mostly imported from the United States, he says.

“It’s a hungry country,” Prewitt explains, “Although almost all West African countries import their food to some degree, Nigeria has a particularly large import balance deficit on food.”

Nigeria has about 1000 million hectares of land available for cultivation, but only half of it is currently being utilized, Prewitt said. There are a variety of reasons for this, he says, but overall there’s low productivity in the nation’s agricultural sector.

“Simply put, they don’t grow enough food for themselves, [so] per hectare their land is not as productive as in other parts around the world,” Prewitt said. “That’s due to a lot of missing links…lack of good seeds, lack of research and lack of fertilizer.”

Part of Prewitt’s Nigeria Markets program involves working directly with local farmers and connecting them with suppliers of seeds and fertilizers.

And it appears to be paying off. Early indicators show that farmers working with the program are seeing rice yields of 5.7 tons per hectare, compared to the national average of 1.4 tons of rice per hectare, he said.

They’ve also introduced “super seeds” to farmers, Prewitt said, something most farmers have never used before. Harvests are more bountiful, he said adding that there is improvement throughout the agricultural value chain.

In addition to super seeds and fertilizers Nigeria Market has introduced new technologies such as solar dryers for cocoa, new threshers and other advanced farming equipment.

There are “huge growth opportunities” for investment in Nigeria’s agriculture sector, Prewitt said, adding that there’s been an uptick in rice and sorghum. Yet he cautioned that investors and entrepreneurs have a thorough working knowledge of the industry in the region before making any major commitments.

As new technologies and agricultural advancements spread across the country, it is only a matter of time before the ultimate goal, of making Nigeria agriculturally self-sufficient is realized he said.

“People come in, there’s new processing factories, there’s a new 150,000-ton mill, there are several new mills about to come online,” says Prewitt. “ We are seeing that kind of investment.”


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This article was originally posted on Sustainable Development Africa Platform

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