Prof. Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, Senior Special Advisor on Industrialisation to the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has urged the Federal Government to formulate strategies that will foster the availability of food and export of agricultural products.

Oyebanji, who spoke at a two-day Feed Nigeria Summit, entitled, ‘Unlocking prosperity through partnership’ in Abuja said Nigeria needed to formulate appropriate and sustainable strategies and build capabilities of various sectors for dynamic agro-industrialisation.

He also stressed the need to foster domestic and export competitiveness in the agro-business industry to generate jobs, reduce poverty, improve livelihoods and quality of lives through the increased contribution of manufacturing to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

He stressed that Nigeria, as with all African countries needed to focus on exporting processed agro-products in general, adding that it was important to identify which were priority products for individual countries in terms of food security and export advantage.

Oyelaran-Oyeyinka revealed that globally, the share of bulk agricultural export was on the decrease and increasingly accounting for a smaller share of the market.

He identified some reasons Nigeria and Africa had been lagging in industrial agriculture, adding that “the quality of products may be qualitatively inferior and as such non-competitive for high-income international markets.”

He stressed that the productivity of African farmers was low, compared to other developing countries, since according to him, “human and technological capabilities, including advanced knowledge and mechanisation are disturbingly in short supply.

Oyelaran-Oyeyinka also spoke on biases against processed goods imports in form of tariff and non-tariff barriers to exports from the African continent, which he said, included metrology, certification and standards, sanitary and Phyto-sanitary measures; trade facilitation instruments, explaining that export procedures such as customs delays, were important issues.

He said that in the shifting composition of the world market, the share of bulk raw material in exports had been declining over time and might not be as economically viable as it was in a global economy that was highly knowledge-based and innovation-driven.

He stressed that the EU that imported 36 million tonnes of grain in 1970, exported 16 million tons in 1985 and 30 million tonnes of wheat in 2018.