Questions answered in this article:
– What opportunity does the growing demand for food in Nigeria and Africa present to the youths?
– What is the current interest level of youths’ interest in practising agiculture?
– Why are youths better positioned to take advantage of the growing food market?
At The Agriculture Option (TAO), our purpose is to make agriculture a viable economic option for young people. We plan to do this by supporting an evolution of the average Nigerian agriculturist to become a young person that cultivates on up to 50 hectares of land, or its equivalent in non-crop value chains or practice. This support includes infrastructure, equipment, and processing capacity, in an integrated agriculture outlook, that earns at least ₦50 million per annum.
This is a mission to deploy agriculture as strong economic and human development pillars for nation building in Nigeria. It will responsibly engage in promising businesses that combine strong models with technology and capacity development to provide accessible economic opportunities in agriculture to young farmers, traders, and general agricultural practitioners. It will not be a fleeting trend; it is the future of business using new systems and technology to meet with agriculture. The future of facilitating a system of strong value chain interactions. The future of standing with agriculture.
We have been keenly involved in the transformation of Nigeria’s agriculture and have supported value chain interactions using digital capabilities and innovative models. We have joined stakeholders in the agriculture value chains to look at reimagining ourselves in a technology-driven ecosystem, and to set forth on a transformation journey.
From the communique of the 2016 Youth Agribusiness, Leadership and Entrepreneur Summit on Innovation, which advocated for governments and organisations to “mainstream agribusiness” by promoting youth entrepreneurship in agriculture, to 2014 African Union Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods, which binds member states to job creation for at least 30% of youth in agricultural value chains, and the 4th Principle for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems championing the engagement and empowerment of youth by advancing their access to extension, advisory, and financial services including innovation and new technologies.
There is a consensus that agriculture has the potential to generate good-income job opportunities for millions of youths. This resonates with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s position that by harnessing youths’ innovative potential, utilising new technologies, and taking advantage of new opportunities in emerging value chains, young agri-entrepreneurs could create thriving businesses and tackle the challenge of feeding a growing population. The time is here to create the needed enablers for the youth to take advantage of the business opportunities in the agriculture sector. Therefore, we have centred our focus on the youth.
Nigerian youths can be rapidly equipped with finance, knowledge, and digital technology, that can be purposed to support homegrown supply to the increasing demand for food and agricultural raw materials. This move can grow the economy, providing productive economic engagements and jobs, while returning hope to young people.
For example, effective engagement of 2 million youths in agriculture in an integrated effort of land availability, financing and partnership platforms holds the potential to create about 30 million jobs, 80 million Metric Tons (MT) of export quality and global standard agricultural produce, with a potential for rapid annual growth.
Introduction
Indeed, agriculture has become knowledge intensive, therefore, attracting and retaining young people in agriculture is key to a green revolution that will also reduce unemployment.
Extrapolating simply from the World Bank Group’s projection on Africa’s food market in the 10 years to 2030, Nigeria’s food market will grow to about $250 billion in the same period, and if things remain as they are in Nigeria’s agriculture, about 84% of the country’s food requirement will be imported. To infer from an AfDB report on youth employment, 20 million young, educated Nigerians may not find jobs by 2030.
The FAO recognises that the importance of engaging youths in agriculture has been increasingly underscored at national, regional, and global levels, so, there is urgent need for opportunities to empower the youth to carry out and benefit from responsible agricultural investments by giving launch-pads to those most concerned – young farmers, agricultural entrepreneurs, and workers.
Are we missing an opportunity?
There has never been a paucity of efforts by government and other stakeholders in Nigeria to institute interventions that will deliver far-reaching agricultural transformation. Between 2015 and 2022, aggregate intervention efforts in agriculture disbursed over ₦1 trillion that directly reached over 4 million farmers, providing thousands of jobs, and expanding business opportunities for agribusinesses across Nigeria. The overall objectives range from creating the conditions for the emergence of a new generation of farmers, agribusiness entrepreneurs and job opportunities, increasing access to credit financing to the agricultural sector, enabling lower importation of agricultural commodities, growing the external reserves, and boosting capacity utilisation of agricultural firms.
However, the typical profile of the about 2 million farmers supported so far by these interventions is a 43-year-old man with primary education. By this, the average recipient of Nigeria’s agricultural intervention may not be open to innovation and growth, has a shorter productive life, and represents only 4% of the population.
Even though agricultural intervention efforts are purportedly far reaching, the distribution of farmers and other value chain participants that are typically covered so far has been skewed against a major and potentially impactful demographic group —the youth. In an economy where 20 million educated youths may not find jobs by 2030, not focusing agricultural development efforts on young people, the productive heart of a nation, is a missed opportunity, with a potential to address the major pain points of youth unemployment and food security in Nigeria.
The average age in Nigeria is 17.0, and the youth, ages 18-35, make up 30% of the population. According to the National Bureau for Statistics’ (NBS) Labour Force Statistics – Unemployment and Underemployment Report for Q3 2018, 68.7% of young people in the labour force, aged 15-24 years, were either underemployed (engaged in work for less than 20 hours a week) or unemployed (willing and actively seeking to work), while the combined rate for the 25–34-year age group stood at 45.1%. These age groups (15-24 years and 25-34 years) represent the youth population in Nigeria and have a combined unemployment and underemployment rate of 55.4% or 24.5 million (13.1 million unemployed and another 11.3 million underemployed). The report concluded that young people are more likely to face difficulties securing full time employment and are more likely to be completely idle.
In a 2019 Youth Engagement Survey conducted by AgroMall-a Nigerian agricultural company, which comprised of 163 respondents (age 18 – 35 years), and sample clusters reflecting the six geo-political zones in Nigeria, (96% having a tertiary educational qualification, 79.8% male and 20.2% female); 75% of the respondents expressed their determination to create an agricultural enterprise, whilst 79% indicated their willingness to be trained on ICT for digital agriculture. Considering the unharnessed interest of young people in Agriculture, Nigeria may be missing an opportunity to provide both sustainable food security and youth productivity with the same effort.
For example, of the over 1.1 million hectares of farmland cultivated by about 1.05 million farmers under Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers Programme (Nigeria’s flagship agricultural intervention of the Buhari administration) up till 2019. If fifty per cent (500 thousand hectares) had been cultivated by 250 thousand educated young farmers, up to 1 million jobs and 3 million metric tons of grains at ₦285 billion farmgate value could have been produced directly by young people. This is over 100% efficiency growth compared to Nigeria’s current agricultural production levels.
A deliberate focus of half of Nigeria’s agricultural intervention effort on digital technology-supported youth engagement in agriculture will address some clear and present socio-economic challenges facing Nigeria and create good outcomes and favourable perception of agriculture.
The big picture
Nigeria’s population was put at 218 million people in 2022, characterised by widening youth bulge. Fueled by a population growth rate of 2.62%, absolute youth population is expected to continue to increase significantly. Targeting youth led farming and agribusinesses will give agricultural development efforts enhanced immediate outcomes, long-term economic impact, and positive perception in Nigeria, and can potentially become an agriculture and job creation transformation platform.
With this, Nigeria’s policy makers and businesses are presented with an opportunity to provide both sustainable food security and youth productivity with the same effort, and an outlook that targets the Africa food market that is estimated to reach 1 trillion dollars in 2030. The prospect for Nigeria in this is that its agricultural production will compete with and potentially upturn 84% of supply to the African food market, which is currently imported from outside Africa.
The newly signed African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) further creates twin opportunities for Nigeria to be a major player in this market, as it has an abundance of youth manpower, arable land, and the potential of digital technology to support exponential growth and scale in agricultural production for the African market, while solving the problem of the projected 24.5 million youth without jobs or underemployed.
Educated young farmers will adopt best agronomy and extension practices, farm, and digital technology. They can be supported by young farm hands and youth-led agribusiness owners in input supply, logistics, aggregation, and processing. Their digital technology supported operations will help to provide situational awareness across the value chains, generate real data for policy and plans, and create positive perception and reportage through new media.
We believe that if 2 million educated young farmers are engaged to cultivate 10 million hectares across crop and livestock value chains – focusing on 7 out of the 10 identified prime commodities – Rice, Maize, Cassava, Cocoa, Tomato, Cotton, and Oil Palm; 30 million jobs and up to 80 million Metric Tons (MT) of grains at ₦4.2 trillion farmgate value (₦105,000 average price per ton) could be produced directly per farming cycle.
The youths are better positioned to achieve multiple farming cycles per annum as they will adopt technology, digital agriculture, and market access capabilities, so the annual production numbers can hit ₦8.4 trillion.
At just 5 hectares per capita, these output levels translate to about ₦8 million per capita, outperforming existing minimum wage jobs that most youths are currently jostling for. An outlook to take hectarage to 50 per capita, in addition to processing capacity, will translate to over ₦50 million per capita, and aggregated will create a prosperous youth and agriculture led economy.
The Agriculture Option (TAO)
The Agriculture Option (TAO) believes that agriculture is a viable economic option for young people, and that youth participation in the sector is a veritable tool for nation building. Therefore, it is galvanising a youth led effort to modernise and improve agricultural production towards food and economic security; and ultimately nation building in Nigeria.
TAO is driving an evolution of the average Nigerian agriculturist to be a young person that cultivates on up to 50 hectares of land, or its equivalent in non-crop value chains, with infrastructure, equipment, and processing capacity, in an integrated agriculture outlook that earns at least ₦50 million per annum.
It will leverage the integration of existing concepts, systems, and capabilities such as community, digital technology and physical impressions of productivity and value on farms, processing mills and dining tables across Nigeria.
It will support enterprises that have capabilities, anchored on strong models that will combine with other stakeholders to create the conditions for the young people of Nigeria to thrive in agriculture.
In 5 years, TAO’s efforts targets to reach:
- 2 million young people in productive agriculture
- 50 thousand agribusiness to support producers
- 500 thousand agribusiness jobs,
- 30 million impacted lives
- ₦4.8 trillion farm gate produce value and ₦24 trillion total value chain productivity value.
