Often times, government reels out statistics of steady economic growth. The growth index, say economists, is occasioned by rising oil prices and quantity of oil sold. An analyst, Comrade Chika Onuegbu, described such growth as “jobless, non-inclusive growth.” He enumerates how to create jobs through the agricultural sector and keep Nigerians in gainful employment, reports DUPE OLAOYE-OSINKOLU.
Unemployment rate in Nigeria is burgeoning and at the moment stands at well over 30 per cent of the nation’s workforce. When segregated, the figures become more alarming, especially those for the youth which stand at about 70 per cent in the urban areas and 60 per cent in the rural areas. These numbers are increasing by the day and nothing seems to be in the offing in the nearest future to get anything done to reverse the trend. The consequences of this, both to the economy, polity and Nigeria as a whole are dire and demands immediate response both for now and the future.”
This is the thrust of a paper by an analyst, Comrade Chika Onuegbu, at a gathering in Lagos. The paper, which centred on employment generation, addressed the issue of solution to unemployment, saying, agriculture remains the way out. He noted: “The easy money from petroleum led to the abandonment of agriculture, changes in the fiscal federalism and the pursuit of ‘easy life’ by the government and people of Nigeria.”
Onuegbu in the paper entitled: Agriculture and unemployment in our country: The way forward, said despite Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate since 2000, “our rate of unemployment is one of the highest in sub-Saharan Africa” . He also said agriculture can bail the youth out of unemployment.
The drift of young men and women from the rural areas to the cities in search of jobs, he said, can be addressed through agriculture.
He said agriculture can create new workplaces as it engages a large percentage of the population directly in its processes, such as land cultivation for crops, both in small and large holdings, poultry, piggery and dairy farms for milk production.
The larger these workplaces are, the more the number of people employed in them, he said.
Onuegbu said agriculture has not been the basic driver of job creation because of distorted national policies as agricultural development dwindled, unemployment worsened, showing a strong correlation between them, he argued.
The agriculture sector, Onuegbu said, can redress the dislocation caused by the emergence of oil, adding: “In Nigeria, agriculture accounted for a larger percentage (about 70 per cent) of the number of people in employment, but with the emergence of oil, which distorted the economic allocative processes, more people left the land for white collar jobs.
With this, agricultural production suffered and Nigeria gradually became a food importer, which finally, led with the passage of time, to her becoming dependent on the rest of the globe for food imports. As agriculture suffered, and as the population increased, as the skill demand level for other jobs increased over time and as lifestyle changed, more and more people found themselves increasingly in the unemployment queue. These sets of people, as a result of certain factors, were unable to go back to agriculture and this worsened the unemployment situation.
“Agriculture can, therefore, generate increasing workplaces in its various stages and processes, from the preparation of the land, the planting of the crops, tending and caring, harvesting and storage and processing into various end or semi-end products. The same can be done with the other segments of the agricultural sector.
“The agricultural value-chain is long and can be stretched to accommodate more and more workers seeking jobs. The more new farms come on stream, the more new hands are needed for their operations,” adding that agriculture creates new bases for jump-starting manufacturing activities.
“Manufacturing activities depend very much on the raw materials provided by the agricultural sector. It provides the bases for individuals to become manufacturers. The technology involved in some of the early stages of the value chain in agriculture is often simple and is easily assessable to the interested entrepreneurs.
“This, therefore, generates a basis for jump starting manufacturing which has the capacity of generating workplaces, thus increasing employment.”
Onuegbu said when manufacturing activities rise in any economy, new workplaces are created. Agriculture being an enabler of small scale manufacturing, not only employs the entrepreneurs involved in it, it also allows them to become creators of jobs thus increasing employment.
Agriculture, he said, generates absorptive capacities for new entrants into the job market. “New entrants into the job market, especially fresh graduates from both tertiary institutions and secondary schools at present do not command high level of skills needed in the highly technologically driven Industrial processes and most of the demands of the service sectors, such as the financial institutions, telecoms, etc. This allows for the existence of the syndrome of “unemployable Nigerian graduates,” meaning that even where there are vacancies, you may not readily find Nigerians to fill such vacancies.
“However, the agricultural sector, because of the low skill demand in the lower end of the business, provides a readily available platform for the absorption of these low skilled new entrants into the labour market, either as entrepreneurs or as employees. With a vibrant agricultural sector therefore, it becomes easier for fresh graduates to participate productively in the nation’s economic processes.
“Another plus that can be derived from agriculture is its being a source of seed money, or capital for investment in other businesses,” Onuegbu said.
He said every economy needs investible capital to start new businesses. The agriculture sector, if properly directed, serves as a ready source of seed money for aspiring entrepreneurs to invest in other areas of the economy. The capital needed to start a small- scale holding farm is often not above the means of the average family and when the right crops are planted and income generated at the harvest season, a reinvestment of a proportion of this over some few years would serve as capital to go into other businesses that demand greater start-up capital.
The availability of start-up capital creates jobs both for the business owner, eventual direct employees and others that may be engaged indirectly because of the spin-offs generated by the business thus established. This will impact positively on unemployment.
Agriculture also creates horizontal and vertical multipliers. Agriculture, he said, is a primary industry, adding that many industries depend on it for their operations. If agriculture gets a boost, other sectors, both the ones that depend on it for raw materials and the ones it depends on for supplies are reinvigorated.
“If we use fisheries, for example, which most of us here can identify with, or cassava cultivation, which is also prevalent here, the business chain that will be created out of these alone can turn this whole environment into an industrial/commercial hub. Starch can be made from cassava, which will attract both other food and pharmaceutical industries, flour for bread and other confectioneries, animal feeds by extension a vibrant poultry sector, the associated businesses to service and enable the sector will all come in with the attendant boom in the real estate sector. Just stretch your imagination and see what can happen to employment generation if we can carefully and consciously regenerate agriculture.
“Having examined some of the roles the sector could play in reducing the present scourge of unemployment, it is imperative that we look at some of the factors that have impeded the growth of agriculture in Nigeria and, especially in our community, so that the roadmap forward can easily be discernible.”
Onuegbu also spoke about impediments to agricultural development. To boost agriculture investment, he advocated subsidising major input to make the sector both locally and internationally competitive.
“When a farmer knows that the price at which he will sell his products are already guaranteed even before planting, this reduces exposure to various associated risks and encourages him to expand his output. It allows him to calculate his probable returns with certainty and makes the financial sector to invest in agriculture.
“Subsidy on power and oil may also serve as a boost to agricultural production. These include but not limited to: Agricultural loans to improve access to funds, provision of incentives – via pricing, subsidy etc, creating greater interface between government agencies, scientific findings and farmers.
“There is an urgent need for a deliberate policy of creating funding pools for the development of agriculture. The Central Bank of Nigeria at present through the banks have set aside this pool of resources for investment in agriculture, but the problem is that these funds are not accessible to, especially, small- scale holders. The collaterals are very tough, the thresholds very high that the small scale are easily excluded for participation.
“A system of rebates and tax holidays should be devised to encourage banks to lend to small scale holdings and the government should be able to guarantee some of these loans so that the issue of stringent security requirements would be mitigated making funds readily available for agriculture.
“I know many young entrepreneurs, who have ideas of what they want to do in agriculture, but are hindered by funds. If funding is made more accessible, their creative energies will be unleashed on the agriculture sector. However, these young men remain frustrated and may, unfortunately, go to their graves without showcasing their ideas. Without funding, ideas will remain in our heads and atrophy.”
He suggested conscious and deliberate efforts on the part of policy makers to make investment in the agriculture sector more attractive to old and budding entrepreneurs. He also sought duty waivers or reduction on imported equipment and other input for direct use in agricultural projects, tax holidays for organisations involved in agriculture, and price guarantees for certain products of agriculture.
