Stakeholders advocate tweaking agric language to attract youth participation

By Cynthia Alo & Kafayat Kokumo

Stakeholders in the agriculture sector have called for a change in the way agriculture is described, saying a shift in language could help attract more young people and investors into the sector.

Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems, Ms Abisola Olusanya, specifically proposed replacing the term ‘agricultural sector’ with ‘raw material economy’, saying that the change could reshape how people perceive business opportunities in the sector.

Speaking recently at the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce, NBCC, Advocacy Roundtable in Lagos, Olusanya said agriculture should no longer be viewed mainly as farming but as a broad business ecosystem covering aggregation, storage, logistics, processing, packaging, data and waste utilisation.

She urged investors and young Nigerians not to exit the sector because of its long-term opportunities, noting that food would remain indispensable even as the global economy moves away from fossil fuels.

“I also believe that language determines where people imagine that opportunity exists. And so maybe going forward instead of talking about the agricultural sector, we should start saying the raw material economy, may be that would actually make people change their minds,” she said.

According to her, describing agriculture as a raw material economy would make young people and investors see opportunities in businesses that convert biological raw materials into products required by people and industries.

President and Chairman of Council, NBCC, Prince Abimbola Olashore, said Nigeria’s agriculture potential could support economic diversification, food security and inclusive growth if supply-chain challenges were addressed.

On his part, Managing Director/CEO of Nigeria Export-Import Bank, NEXIM, Abubakar Bello, represented by the Head of its Lagos Regional Office, Daniella Jarikre-Ikazoboh, said limited processing was leaving much of Nigeria’s agricultural produce in raw form, resulting in lost jobs, value addition and foreign exchange earnings.

Bello said NEXIM was financing processing lines, packaging, warehousing, and quality-control infrastructure across cocoa, cashew, sesame, ginger, shea and oil-palm value chains to help enterprises expand capacity and export higher-value products.

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