The nation’s agricultural sector has always attracted so much attention for no reasons other than its ability to generate employment for a sizeable number of the population, provide the needed platform for the federal government towards reducing the reliance on crude oil by means of increased earnings from non-oil exports, as well as stem rural-urban drift. In fact, in other countries where agricultural practice is treated as a priority, it has helped them to reduce malnutrition, enhance women empowerment just as it has fortified their positions to withstand external shocks especially on occasions when natural disasters such as drought and intensive flooding led to the destruction of small holders’ farms who constitute the largest workers in this sector in most of the developing countries.

That is why the attention some state governments and the federal government have given to the agricultural sec- tor is not a misplaced priority, especially now that the crude oil prices have crashed to about $60/barrel. Unlike the oil export, the agric produce section of the non-oil exports has experienced inconsistency in the amounts realised per produce and the number of items exported on quarterly basis. In Q2 2012 for instance, five agric produce were exported which generated N380.13 billion. In that quarter, neither cot- ton nor rubber was exported. By Q3, 2012 end, no information was provided on the export of cocoa butter, rubber and ginger. Same could be said of the Q4 2012, where cashew, rubber and ginger were not exported. Consequently, earnings from agric produce exports declined to N82.58 billion and N75.61 billion by the end of Q3 and Q4 2012 respectively. Similar trend surfaced again in 2013. A total of N103.47 billion was earned from the export of agric produce in Q1 2103 comprising N62.19 billion from raw cocoa beans; N20.75 billion from sesame seeds; N16.43 billion from cotton and N4.08 billion from ginger. No information on cocoa butter, cashew and rubber which means they were not exported. In Q2 2013, an improvement was recorded as the earnings from agric produce exports fetched the nation N124.09 billion.

In that quarter, cocoa butter and cashew were exported in addition to the items sold over- seas in the first quarter except that no record was provided on cotton export. The increase was as a result of exporting five items compared with four that were exported in the previous quarter added to the fact that more revenues were realised per item in that quarter.

The last two quarters of 2013 show that three items were exported in those quarters which were raw cocoa beans, sesame seeds and cocoa but- ter. Cotton, cashew, rubber and ginger were not exported. As a result, earnings declined to N101.59 billion in Q3 and N87.07 billion in Q4, 2013 respectively. In 2014, three items were exported in Q1 while five were exported in Q2. Based on the foregoing, the inconsistency shown above has shown that the agricultural sector still requires more attention even though we can acknowledge that some states and the federal governments have tried in recent times. One of the ways to further crystallise the progress being made is to increase the budgetary allocations to the sec- tor. The current disposition of the federal government where only N39.15 billion was allocated in the 2015 budget proposal before the national assembly cannot support the desire to make the agricultural sector one of the major foreign exchange earners.

This is because problems such as deficient rural infrastructure, lack of appropriate intermediate technology and undue use of primitive farming system has been the bane of the sec- tor. Since the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has always played a supportive role, how can it do this with such a meagre allocation? All produce are important as it has been demonstrated in Ecuador which realises about $900 million annually from the export of banana alone. That translates to N180 billion in Nigerian today.

The FG and other supportive development institutions can carry out a study to find out the sources of this inconsistency just as it should find out the produce which ex- ports have had the most positive impact on the citizenry. The reason why we are having these inconsistencies could be due to aging plantations. Aging or aged plantations are ubiquitous in the villages where plantations are transferred from one generation to another as inheritance. And the findings of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) support this assertion.

According to IITA’s Sustainable Tree Crops Programs’ the Productivity of Cocoa Systems in West Africa, the number of cocoa trees per hectare decreases as they grow older in the same manner the output per hectare falls as they age. The International Cocoa Organisation says that an average cocoa tree is productive for 25 years. The truth is that the plantations in the rural areas are older than this specification. Addressing these problems will help the nation generate more foreign earnings from the non-oil exports. It will also reduce our susceptibility to external shocks, create more employment opportunities, enhance the utilisation of arable land and hence ensure food security and sustainability.