LAST week, the Federal Government painted a bleak picture about yam production in the country, lamenting Nigeria’s absence on the map of yam-exporting countries despite being a leading producer of the crop. The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ernest Umakhihe, disclosed this at a stakeholders’ workshop in Abuja. Represented by the Director, Federal Department of Agriculture, Abdullahi Abubakar, Umakhihe said the aim of the meeting was to resuscitate the nation’s consciousness on the export of yam. He added: “If we must have sustainable food security for our teeming population of over 200 million people and have enough to export to other countries, there is a need to critically examine the factors working against the quality production and export of our major commodities, of which yam is one. It therefore becomes imperative to put Nigeria in its right position by considering its contribution to global production.” He indicated that the government was currently collaborating with relevant stakeholders to resuscitate yam export from Nigeria to boost wealth creation and food security.
According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Nigeria accounts for 61 per cent of the world’s total yam output. The government’s concern about the untapped revenue potential from yam is therefore legitimate. However, the claim that Nigeria has been exporting no yams to the outside world is incorrect. In June 2017, the Federal Government indicated that the country had started exporting yams to Europe and the United States, as part of moves to diversify its oil-dependent economy and earn much-needed foreign exchange. The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development at the time, Chief Audu Ogbeh, flagged off the first consignment of the fibrous tuber from the port in the country’s economic capital, Lagos, saying: “Oil and gas cannot employ millions of people like agriculture does, so we must work hard to move from oil to earning foreign exchange from agriculture. To make yam competitive, we will work on the packages and the right types of trucks to be used for transportation of the produce.”
But the government failed to walk the talk, and yam producers kept complaining about the barrage of bottlenecks to their trade. Speaking during a meeting with Chief Ogbeh in Abuja in October 2017, yam exporters to Europe and the U.S. decried what they called negative reports about the produce, saying that such reports were de-marketing Nigerian yams in the international market and putting Ghana at an advantage over Nigeria on yam exportation at the international market. Among other drawbacks, they cited the large number of regulatory agencies at the ports, the lack of conditioning centres for storing yams at favourable temperatures before exportation and the bureaucracy at the ports, stressing the need for the pre-cooling of yams from the farm gate before transporting it to reefer containers for export to avoid a break in the cold chain.
. Again, in 2020, the president of the Yam Farmers Association of Nigeria, and professor of agriculture processing and storage at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Simon Irtwange, linked Nigeria’s failures in yam exports to extant legislation. According to him, “There is a legislation, 1989 Export Prohibition Act, that says we cannot export yams out of Nigeria, but there is a policy of the government that is encouraging export of yam and other non-oil exports. For example, Nigeria Export Promotion Council is actively involved in promoting non-oil exports, yam inclusive. But then there is a legislation, 1989 Export Prohibition Act that prohibits yam, cassava and all their derivatives. So, what we are saying is that government policy cannot be encouraging something and the legislature is prohibiting it, so there is a need for that Act to be reviewed because it is not in line with government realities.”
The Federal Government may lament Nigeria’s yam situation, but the key question remains what it is prepared to do about it. If Nigeria’s foreign earnings will be significantly boosted by yam exports, there is no reason to shy away from it. The post-oil era is here. By now, however, Nigerians have got used to lamentations from their government on issues that it was elected into office to help address. It is high time the government realised that Nigerians did not elect it to bemoan problems instead of solving them. Making Nigerian yams suitable for export is no rocket science. But beyond that, there is the question of food processing. If Nigeria and the other countries of Africa are not to remain on the fringes of the global economy, they must learn to stop being the base for the export of raw materials, going ahead to add value to them. Yams, among other agricultural produce, can also be processed for domestic and industrial use. That is the area we want the government to focus on. To meet the yearnings of Nigerians and earn a diginified place for Nigeria in global affairs, the government has to have an industrial(ised) mindset. Nigeria must add value to cash crops, etc, rather than perennially exporting raw materials and then importing the finished products. Sadly, there is no enabling environment: there is no light and, according to many business owers, the tax is killing. These are the things we want the government to focus on, rather than bellyaching over the non-export of raw yams.
There is nothing to wish for in the export of raw yams when the country is in dire need of industrial depth that would make manufacturing and processing the mainstay of the economy. A worthwhile future for the country lies in the area of industrialisation. The earlier the government focused on the more important processes of industrialisation, the better it would be for Nigeria.
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