Five in 10 Nigerian youths who are interested in tapping the opportunities in the agriculture sector are unable to do so due to lack of access to funding.
Despite presenting a unique opportunity for Nigeria’s youth following its significant growth potential, the agriculture sector in Africa’s largest economy remains unattractive to many of the country’s young population, according to findings by Heifer International, a development organisation working to end hunger and poverty around the world.
Breakdown of the responses from Nigerian youth reveals that about 23 percent stressed the need for support in the area of training, behind the 52 percent that needs access to funding.
13 percent need access to agric tech while 5 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent require access to mentoring, market and land, respectively.
Youth’s dampened interest in the sector that employs the most labour in Africa’s largest economy is likely the reason why Nigeria’s youth unemployment rate rose to 14.2 percent in 2020, more than the population of Rwanda and several other African countries.
“Available data from Nigeria reveals that the current average age of a farmer is between 55 and 60 years,” the 2021 report by the US-based company with the title; The Future of Africa’s Agriculture – an Assessment of the Role of Youth and Technology, states.
Nigeria prides herself in having one of the highest concentrations of young people in the world. In 2020, the United Nations (UN) projected about 43 percent of the Nigerian population to be children (0-14 years), 19 percent are between 15-24 years and about 62 percent are below 25 years.
Despite the teeming young population fit to work coupled with the 4.5 million hectares of available agricultural land, Nigeria’s unemployment rate has been on the rise, jumping to 13-year high in 2020.
“To leverage Nigeria’s (and Africa’s) growing youth demographic, agriculture must be made appealing as a career path.
Through branding, we change the rhetoric of a farmer being poor and uneducated,” Aisha Raheem, founder of Farmz2u, says.
According to Marco Hernandez, World Bank lead economist for Nigeria, unless the pace of growth and job creation accelerates, the country will account for a quarter of all people living in extreme poverty worldwide.
Economic growth in Africa’s top crude producing nation averaged 1.2 percent between 2015 and 2020. The problem with that is the population grew two times faster at an average of 2.6 percent per year.
Accounting for about 27 percent of Nigeria’s GDP and providing jobs to about 36 percent of Nigeria’s working population, the agriculture sector is one of the few analysts say has the potential to rescue Nigeria from its unemployment crisis.
Prior to independence, Nigeria had a significant agricultural sector, however, that has since declined and the country has moved toward heavy dependence on imports for food. The country is dominated by the oil industry, which is the government’s key source of revenue.
