In 2024, the agricultural sector witnessed several challenges due to the economic policies of the government. In this interview, the chairman Harvest Feeds Agro Processing, Goke Adeyemi speaks on the challenges faced by agro-processing and the possible solutions. COLLINS NNABUIFE brings excerpts:

HOW will you assess the 2024 agricultural year for agro-processing, and what are your projections for 2025?

If you look at 2024, it was a very challenging year for the economy, especially for agro-processing. We had the natural phenomenon in terms of the impact of climate change which affected agricultural ventures in 2024. Between February, normally in about two to three weeks every year in the onset of rain, we normally have challenge with cassava quality, but last year, there was intermittent rain at the early part of the year, and that means that poor cassava quality was experienced for a long period, instead of normally in three weeks or four weeks there will be low starch content because the onset of the rain and when rain stabilizes, the tubers are okay and we keep going. For five months last year, cassava tuber quality was very poor which is a natural climate challenge that caused a lot of havoc for agricultural production.

Second challenge is the economic problem that Nigeria experienced, occasioned by the policies of the government. We appreciate the fact that the government is doing some restructuring of the economy but I can tell you that the impact is too heavy on agro-processing. The minimum interest rate you can get from the bank will not be less than 37 percent, that is, if you get at all.

The banks generally refused to give loans to anybody, especially for agro-processing. Maybe oil and gas can get, but agro-processing was starved of funds in 2024. Unfortunately, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which used to have a development fund for such interventions, closed shop completely on such development finance.

Previously, there used to be intervention funds for agricultural commodities, but at the onset of the present administration, those funds were completely stopped, so agro-funding was a serious challenge in 2024.

Also, the market became stippled, there are several companies that had to close down in 2024 because of the economic situations. So, it was almost impossible to increase the price of agro-products because there was no market to sell them. Despite all the challenges, we couldn’t increase the price because those companies that are buying them have reduced their production capacity.

Another challenge was inflation. The farmers increased prices because of what they are facing, the prices of the materials went up, the prices of chemicals, fertilisers, seeds and transportation went up. So all together, 2024 was a very challenging year.

Now let us look at 2025, we have seen the budget of the federal government and state governments, we hope that they will be able to implement them. They are telling us that there is light at the end of the tunnel, we are waiting for it. So, hopefully, things might get better, we see for now a little bit of reduction in the price of fuel, it gives some hope, we also see some positive sign in the revenue of Nigeria, there is more oil being pumped in the market, so more dollars will be earned. We are seeing some positive signs of bilateral relations with governments across the world, hopefully it will translate to positive development in 2025.

We have a lot of hopes in 2025, we hope that the government will put a little more energy in agro-processing. They promised us 2000 tractors in the next couple of months, we are asking them to deploy it very well, not going to deploy to politicians alone because that is always the practice. So, if tractors are coming from the federal government, it should go to the verifiable players in the agricultural sector and we know ourselves.

The government must come up with intervention funds, create it in such a way that it will not end up with portfolio farmers or politicians. We need to look at the methodology of extending the federal government largess to those that will make an impact on the economy in 2025.

Recently, the government announced an import waiver for some agro-products, will this action affect agro-processing in Nigeria?

The idea is not good for agro-processors in Nigeria. The best thing is to stimulate, encourage and finance agro-processing in Nigeria. If we do that, food will be cheap. The second thing they also have to do is to tackle insecurity. That is why the issue of local policing or community policing comes in, which will address specific insecurity, per zone or per region, because the characteristics of insecurity in each zone is different.

Has the government answered your call to increase the import duty on starch?

The government has not done anything in respect to that, especially now that there is food inflation in the country. There are several multinational companies that go to CBN and collect dollars at lower rates at that time, meanwhile, other individuals or local manufacturers don’t have that opportunity. But with the deregulation, there is a level playing field now, and that happened to benefit local manufacturers.

Also, the devaluation of naira also helped local manufacturers a little bit. With that, the need to increase import tariffs was reduced, though if it is still done, it will be better. Currently, local starch sells around N1.1 million per ton and imported starch sells around that same price per ton. Before, while locally processed starch was selling at N1.1 million per ton, imported starch will be selling around N900,000 or N800,000 per ton, but now we are almost at the same price because of the impact of economic decisions of the governments.

Going forward, what is your advice to the government on improving agriculture?

The first thing I want the government to do is to have verifiable data of real players in agro-business so that every intervention you want to do will go to the right channels. The second thing is that the government must reduce the interest rates for agro-businesses. They need to provide intervention funds for agribusinesses at single-digit interest rate, it will go a long way. As it is today, if we still rely on what individuals can do without investment in the sector, then we are joking, we really need huge investment in the agriculture sector to cope with the demand of meeting with food security in Nigeria. We need power supply and road infrastructure for agro-processing. The idea of an isolated grid in which we have industrial ventures will go a long way to support such ventures.

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