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Nigeria’s economic growth lies in agribusiness – says LBS director

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Mr Kelikume Ikechukwu, Programme Director, Lagos Business School, on Saturday said that  Agribusiness  and not agriculture was  the key to unlocking  Nigerian economy.

Ikechukwu speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos  described agriculture as activities such  as crop production, fishery, forestry and animal husbandry.

He, however, said that agribusiness encompassed  land, people, packaging, processing, transportation and the export of produce which goes beyond just farming.

“For instance, an agribusiness practitioner will take maize and extract ethanol and raw starch from it to produce industrial starch needed by textile industries.

“The industrial starch is produced outside Nigeria but the raw starch that is  used in producing  industrial starch comes form Nigeria,” he said.

The director added that if agriculture  were truly  the key to unlocking the economy,  then Cote d’Ivoire, the richest country in cocoa production, would have ranked the  biggest in the cocoa value chain.

He said, “Switzerland, however, is the biggest in the cocoa value chain but it  does  not produce cocoa that is why agribusiness is the key to unlocking the Nigerian economy.

“If we begin to expand it, you will see how big the agribusiness space is compared to agriculture that is why it holds the key and not agriculture.”

He advised youths interested either in agriculture or agribusiness to seek knowledge and experience first before pursuing money because agriculture requires experiential learning for its practitioners to be successful.

“Money should not be the first thing to consider when anyone is  going into agriculture or else such will lose all the money, rather get knowledge and information which will serve as a guide.

“You need to dirty your hands and build experience by going to the farm to understand the terrain before you can become successful in  the financial aspect,” he said.

Ikechukwu urged youths to take advantage of the several opportunities that abound in the agricultural space in order to meet  increasing demand for food by  a growing population of 200 million people.

“Our population is currently slightly above 200 million people and there is a problem with the age distribution because 43 per cent of our population lies between the age grade zero to 14 years.

“This means that we have over 90 million children that must be fed so we need more youths that will go into agriculture in order to meet the increasing demand for food,” he said.

He urged  the organised private sector  to show more interest in organising empowerment   and capacity building programmes where several youths could benefit from. (NAN)

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