Annually, agriculture is said to contribute N348.7 billion to the economy. It can be more if over 50 per cent of agricultural produce, especially perishables are not wasted and unfit for the market. Air freight has the potential to reduce this wastage and boost foreign exchange earnings, writes OLUKOREDE YISHAU
Agriculture Minister Akinwunmi Adesina is never out of the news. If the minister is not talking about rice farming, he is talking about cocoa farming. He is upbeat about the agriculture sector, which he sees as the next oil sector. The sector absorbed $5 billion last year. But in all these, the minister has also been concerned about food wastage, which the United Nations Environmental Project (UNEP)says has both financial and environmental implications.
Environmentally, food waste leads to wasteful use of chemicals such as fertilisers and pesticides; more fuel used for transportation; and more rotting food, creating more methane – one of the most harmful greenhouse gases that fuels to climate change.
A report said: “Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted. Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes).The amount of food lost or wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world’s annual cereals crop (2.3 billion tonnes in 2009/2010).
Nigeria contributes a great deal to this situation. Food waste and losses occur at early stages of the food value chain. Farmers daily lose so much during planting and harvest seasons due to the problem of storage and freight challenges. They have grappled with their losses over the years. The poor transport system means their produce cannot get to the market before the perishable ones become spoilt.
Adesina, at the World Economic Forum (WEF), said: “The issue of global food security is very important. Nine billion people need to be fed by 2050 and there is no doubt in my mind that that requires that we significantly increase agricultural productivity. But if you look at where the land really is, most of the land is not in the United States, it is not in South Asia or anywhere in the world. It is in Africa and a bulk of it is in Nigeria. We have 84 million hectares of land.”
He said he would continue to push for the optimisation of the level of land in Nigeria to enable the country raise productivity with modern technology, saying Africa is where the compass is for food production that will save the world.
“Africa and in particular, Nigeria, is going to be part of the major solution to global food problem and that requires that we change our approach to Agriculture not just as a development activity, but agriculture as a business,” he said.
A solution is being found to food wastage. Adesina and Aviation Minister Stella Oduah are working to protect perishable cargoes through designated cargo airports. Countries, such as Kenya, South Africa, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Egypt long adopted this strategy. Through their perishable cargo airports, they are reaping internally and externally. Perishable air freight export out of Africa in 2010 was approximately $1.6 billion.
Nigeria is nowhere to be found despite being the largest sub-Saharan African country producing perishables.
This has dawned on government and on Monday, the Federal Government designated the Akure Airport as a perishable cargo terminal. 13 of the 22 remodelled airports have been designated as cargo airports. Additional facilities are being provided at these airports to make them function effectively as cargo airports.
“We understand how farmers feel when their products can’t get to the market. We know how it hurts when you invest and there is no return on investment; we know that colleagues in the Agriculture sector are striving to return the country to the path of sustainable agriculture and we on this part are working to ensure those mangoes, oranges and even fish do not rotten somewhere inside the farm. We are creating cargo airports and encouraging farm to market idea, where farmers can freight their produce without trouble and get reward for their efforts,” said Oduah.
The aviation minister said it is the priority of her ministry to help farmers out of poverty through the new cargo airports.
“By making distribution easier for farmers who usually have to compete with the challenge of moving their perishable goods, we are also pumping money back into the local economy. And beyond the direct economic benefits, connecting eaters with local growers helps cultivate a sense of national pride and solidarity. We have a real attachment to making sure our country continues to have its rural, agricultural heritage by supporting and creating this channel called perishable cargo airports,” says Yakubu Dati, the spokesman for aviation parastatals.
The Director of Air Cargo, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Uchenna Ofulue, is expected to spearhead the drive for the development of the air cargo sector.
The Chairman, Domestic Airport Cargo Agent Association (DACAA), Emmanuel Odia, said the creation of cargo department by the FAAN will enhance cargo business in the airports.
The determination of FAAN to construct cargo terminal would boost the activities of the cargo agents, and ensure sanity in the cargo business at the airports, he said.
“I think it is one of the best things that could happen to the aviation industry. It means that there is no cargo terminal in Nigeria that will not have a cargo department and this will enhance our business as cargo agents.
“The moment the directorate picks up, and there is a section for cargo spinning, it will boost our business, “Odia said.
The DACAA boss explained that this would also help to curb disorder and touting.
Odia appealed to the management of the FAAN to create a cargo section under the directorate where all cargo activities would be carried out.
He, however, expressed displeasure over the decline of domestic airlines which, he said, had negatively affected DACCA business and had forced most cargo owners to transport their goods by road.
The Chinese government is building five new airport terminals which have been designed with facilities for air cargo as well. The deal includes five international terminals for commercial flights and six for perishable cargo. The airports being undertaken with concessionary loan from China Exim Bank will be situated in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and Enugu.
Speaking at the inauguration of the international terminal of the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Lamido Sanusi Lamido, said the cargo airports would end the era of farmers losing their yields and can even earn foreign exchange by exporting their perishables.
Interestingly, the global perishables market is worth over $5billion or about N1trillion annually. With the cargo airports, farmers will be able to participate in this market. They can now earn money from their fresh tropical fruits, such as oranges, pineapples, mangoes, tangerine, paw paw, grapes, cashew, bananas and vegetables.
An Agricultural economist, Sule Dantiye, said: “If government follows this through, the farmers and the country will gain a lot. For me, it is a poverty alleviation strategy, which makes more sense than distributing motorcycle and stuffs like that to people. I understand that they will also provide cold storage containers, specialised transportation for these perishables and so on. This will really change a lot of things.”
The ministries are urging Nigerians to believe them on the workability of this initiative, saying it is no empty promise. That was the gospel Adesina preached at Davos last week.
Oduah said: “It means that our aunties, our cousins, our relations living in rural communities will have access to international market. We would have developed some rural economies that would be independent of allocations from the Federal Government and independent from oil resources. It would be one of the greatest platforms for government to stop rural, urban migration. It will grow employment opportunity; it will have all the value chain properly ad completely developed. It will encourage the growth of new middle class.”
Dati said the new Port Harcourt Airport terminal was different from the old one because it has room for cargo.
He said the economic importance of Port Harcourt in efforts to develop agriculture in the country motivated the Federal Government to build an international cargo terminal in the area.
“We are starting a new terminal, which will be built from scratch, in addition to what we have. This shows the importance of Port Harcourt in the Federal Government’s plans and it also complements the fact that we want to open up an entry point for commerce and industry internationally.
“Although the Port Harcourt airport facilitates oil and gas exports, it is also strategic for the exportation of agricultural produce because of its location,” he said.
Dati said the Port Harcourt airport was important to the Federal Government’s transformation agenda, saying that the first phase of the terminal’s remodelling project would be inaugurated soon.
He said the cargo terminal would enable Nigeria to effectively export oil palm and other agricultural produce for wealth creation.
Significantly, the National Planning Commission (NPC) yesterday said agriculture contributed N348.7 billion to the nation’s economy in 2012, as against N335.18 billion recorded in 2011.
The figure is contained in the 2012 Performance Report on the nation’s economy issued in Abuja by the commission.
The report noted that the sector’s value added stood at N348.7 billion in 2012, compared with N335.18 billion recorded in 2011, indicating a growth rate of 3.97 per cent as against 5.64 per cent in 2011.
It added that “the contribution of agriculture to overall real Gross Domestic Product Growth was 24.25 per cent in 2012, compared with 31.04 per cent in 2011.
“Growth was led by crop production, which accounted for 20.46 per cent of the overall economic growth in 2012, compared with 27.41 per cent in 2011.”
It stated that the slowdown in the sub-sector’s contribution to growth in 2012 was due to security issues in some parts of the north that adversely affected agricultural production and marketing.
Flooding had also affected the productivity of the sector in 2012, it added.
The report showed that the Federal Government’s initiatives to improve agriculture and investments had not been significantly felt due to security challenges and that food imports were taking huge amounts of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.
”In the first quarter of 2012 alone, more than 1.4 billion U.S. dollars (N221.2 billion) was spent on food imports, compared with 1.11 billion U.S. dollars ((N168.75 billion) in the first quarter of 2011, indicating a growth of 26.6 per cent,” it said
The commission stressed the need for the nation to learn from the success stories of China and India that exited from being food importers to exporters in the last 30 years.
The sector will contribute more if the cargo airports initiatives fully take off and with time, the era of over 50 per cent of perishables being wasted may soon be over.
