Russian Products Can Help Nigeria in its Rejuvenation of Agricultural Sector -By Oluwafemi Arowoshola

Nigeria like many countries in Africa built her initial economic strength from tilling the land, feeding from its returns and selling a bulk of it to the rest of the world. At this point, an essential portion of the nation’s income was gotten from cocoa, palm oil, wool, cotton, wood logs, groundnut oil, cassava, rubber. This was the case for a long time until a pressure-induced need to switch to oil shoved our focus on agriculture aside.

Skyrocketing oil prices decades ago, created a sense of need to conform to this new line of trade and caused a significant neglect of our initial sources of income. Agriculture in Nigeria literally fell from 48 percent of GDP in 1970 to 20.6 percent in 1980 and we became a net importer of goods that were once our major export.

Gradually, Nigeria became overly dependent on crude oil, which due to the dynamics of world economy, is now a less profitable source of income for the nation. These recent events have led to an increasing call for diversification – making our long due return to prioritising the export of agricultural produce more imminent than it has ever been.

However, rebuilding the sector wouldn’t be an easy task. To move at the pace required for the nation to begin benefitting significantly from the export of these products, a lot of attention must be paid to the “how”. Federal and state efforts have been combined on different levels to rekindle interest of youths, incentivise existing farmers and provide financial and material support where due. More must be done to improve the process – using up-to-date machineries that will expedite the process. This ranges from modern bulldozers to harvesters and many other solutions that are an integral part of Russia’s working agro-process.

Bettering the current situation in Nigeria goes beyond central efforts of the government. At B2B Export, we believe in the power of private initiatives – the ability of private initiators (small to large scale agro-investors) to contribute to the larger goals of their nation by investing wisely in areas where the economy and society requires urgent intervention. B2B Export does not only encourage, but also extends its services to you, helping to establish contacts with reputable Russian manufactures and experts. This is a partnership that is essential for Nigerian agricultural entrepreneurs to work on at such a vital point in the country’s looming reform.