Nigeria spends more than $10 billion each year importing agricultural products such as wheat, rice, sugar, fish and tomato paste, according to the country’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari.
Speaking at the First Bank of Nigeria Agric and Export Expo in Lagos on Tuesday, Kyari warned that the scale of imports was unsustainable and called for stronger financing for agriculture to boost domestic production and exports.
Represented by his Special Adviser, Ibrahim Alkali, the minister said agriculture already contributes 35% to Nigeria’s GDP and employs a similar share of the workforce, yet the country earns less than $400 million from agricultural exports.
“Nigeria sits on 85 million hectares of arable land and has a youth population of more than 70% under the age of 30, but accounts for less than 0.5% of global exports,” he said.
Kyari stressed that President Bola Tinubu’s administration is committed to achieving food sovereignty. He argued that boosting domestic production and supporting exports must go hand-in-hand, while urging reforms in financing, infrastructure and value addition to transform agriculture into a driver of prosperity.
“The fundamentals compel that we move from dependence on oil rigs to resilience in food and export earnings, from fragmented farmer credit to structured financial systems that attract significant capital,” he said.