Should we force the pace of development and turn off the oil taps? Personally, I have nothing to fear from this as agriculture will easily come to the rescue

By Ayo Akinfe

Nigeria is estimated (we do not even have exact figures) to earn about $37bn a year from the sale of petroleum products. I for one have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if we turned off the oil taps today, agriculture alone could generate that figure.

We are the world's sixth largest agricultural producer for a food reason. We have about 82m hectares of arable land compared with say 80m in Brazil, 46m in Australia, 33m hectares in France and 12.3m hectares in Spain. Canada only has 43.6m hectares of arable land, while in Italy it is only 6.6m hectares.

With good climatic conditions, great soil and an unpolluted countryside, it is not surprise that crops grow in abundance. Our problems are just storage, transportation, low yields, inadequate refrigeration, poor rural roads and the growing problem of deforestation as we continue building houses in what should be prime farmland.

My biggest gripe though is our failure to move into agro-processing. I think we need a constitutional amendment that compels every one of our 774 local government areas to have a processing factory.  If we do, the export of agricultural products could easily generate $100bn in exports earnings for Nigeria annually.

Crops in which Nigeria is the number one producer in the world

[1] Cassava - 52m tonnes

[2] Yam - 40m tonnes

[3] Kolanuts - 150,000 tonnes

[4] Cashews - 922,000 tonnes

[5] Shea nuts - 370,000 tonnes

[6] Egusi - 570,000 tonnes

[7] Cocoyam - 3.2m tonnes

Crops in which we are among the top 10 producers in the world

[1] Millet - World's number two producer with 5m tonnes

[2] Sweet Potato - World's number two producer with 3.47m tonnes

[3] Okra -World's number two producer with 2.06m tonnes

[4] Mackerel - World's number two producer with 132,000 tonnes

[5] Sorghum - World's number three producer with 7.4m tonnes

[6] Gum Arabic - World's number three producer with 22,000 tonnes

[7] Groundnuts - World's number three producer with 3m tonnes

[8] Papaya - World's number four producer with 800,000 tonnes

[9] Palm Oil - World's number five producer with 970,000 tonnes

[10] Plantain - World's number five producer with 3.09m tonnes

[11] Cocoa - World's number six producer with 240,000 tonnes

[12] Pineapples - World's number six producer with 1.5m tonnes

[13] Pepper - World's eighth largest producer with 813,160 tonnes

[14] Mangoes - World's number 10 producer with 917,617 tonnes

[15] Guava - World's number 10 producer with 790,200 tonnes

Other crops which we are a major producer of

With maize we are number 12 with 11m tonnes, while with coconuts, we are number 18 with 288,615 tonnes. With onions, we are number 20 with 1.25m tonnes, while we produce 1.8m tonnes of tomatoes, which I estimate will make us around the world's 20th largest producer. With soyabeans, we are about number 12 with 588,000 tonnes, while for coffee we are a distant number 40 with 40,000 tonnes. We do not have figures for neem and timber and have also stopped keeping records of how much rubber we produce.