Nigeria missing out from Africa’s projected $151.2bn meat, milk market
Nigeria is missing out from the meat and milk market potential in Africa since these sub-sectors remain under-exploited as illustrated by the countries overarching dependence on import of some animal products.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) projects meat and milk market in Africa will be worth about $151.2 billion by the year 2050. This does not imply there would be any major shift in the distribution and consumption of animal sourced foods across African regions between 2005/07 and 2050. Prospects for livestock sector development will differ across agro-ecological zones, countries and in geographic areas within countries.
Experts at an event organised in November, 2016 in Lagos by Agra Innovate West Africa, Nigeria’s largest agribusiness trade exhibition contended that the livestock subsector is yet to receive appropriate recognition and most of the technologies in the sector are obsolete.
“We must be innovative in the implementation and execution of agricultural programmes, projects and activities,” said Tope Damola, chairman, Shonga Farms.
Livestock production grew by 0.76 percent in the third quarter of 2016 from 6.32 percent in the second quarter of 2016 and 5.50 percent in the third quarter of 2015, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stated in its Gross Domestic Q3 2016 report.
According people familiar with the matter, government should provide necessary infrastructure and update the data on livestock production in Africa’s most populous nation, stating that inability to do these has hindered the tracking of livestock.
Currently, Africa’s biggest economy needs more than a million metric tonnes of poultry products annually to meet local demand. Official figures show that local farmers are only able to produce 300,000 metric tonnes, leaving a wide gap of more than 1.2 million metric tonnes.
“We are working tirelessly to meet local demand and to ensure that Nigeria is self-sufficient in chicken,” Ayoola Oduntan, group managing director of natnudO Foods, said during a media tour on the company’s farm recently.
“With some patience and support, Nigeria will be self-sufficient in poultry production. We are ready to lead the drive of the change we intend to achieve,” Oduntan said.
African meat and milk markets represent a major business opportunity for livestock producers, not so much for the volume of animal-sourced foods consumed in the continent as for the projected market growth, in terms of both volume and value. From this perspective, opportunities for investment in African markets for animal-sourced foods will likely be more attractive than those of world’s other regions.
Returning to the FAO report, no major shift is anticipated in both the distribution and consumption of animal sourced food. For instance, Eastern Africa, that is, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) an eight-country trade bloc comprising governments from the Horn of Africa, Nile Valley and the African Great Lakes is and will remain the largest milk market in Africa; and Southern Africa, that is, Southern African Development Community (SADC) is the largest market for poultry.
Although there are ample business opportunities for livestock producers in Africa across all products in the coming decades, FAO’s projections indicate that African producers will be increasingly challenged to respond to growing demand.
Most regions are anticipated to increase imports to meet the rapidly growing demand for livestock products. In particular, with the notable exception of Eastern Africa, all geographic hubs are expected to be growing net importers of livestock products in the coming decades, with the volume of imports steadily increasing for all major livestock products.
African producers in all regions, with some exceptions in Eastern Africa, will find it difficult to satisfy the growing demand for animal-sourced foods, with imports in volume anticipated to steadily increase in the coming decades throughout the continent. This represents a missed development opportunity, given the widespread societal benefits that an inclusive growth of livestock can generate, particularly in a continent where between 40 and 80 percent of rural dwellers are estimated to depend partly or fully on livestock for their livelihoods, this was stated in FAO’s 2012 report.
STEPHEN ONYEKWELU