http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/africa_nigerian_palm_oil/html/10.stm

To all you Nigerian entrepreneurs out there, get your thinking caps on and come up with ways on how to make Nigeria benefit from the crop as the Malaysians have apparently done.

The problem is that most young enterpreuners are only interested in corporate or 'white collar' businesses and not agricultural ones.

Don't weep for palmoil production alone. Weep for our groundnut pyramids . Weep for our cocoa production. And also weep for our minerals like coal and tin explorations.

@poster
and most importantly,weep for yourself for being in another man's country pointing to yours with the left hand

asha 80:

The problem is that most young enterpreuners are only interested in corporate or 'white collar' businesses and not agricultural ones.

Are you for sure say this na the case for most?

Kobojunkie:

Are you for sure say this na the case for most?

As for nigerians enterpreneurs based in naija yes most are like that.I do not know for for naija guys based abroad though that might want to come back because i know the mentality might be different.

asha 80:

As for nigerians enterpreneurs based in naija yes most are like that.I do not know for for naija guys based abroad though that might want to come back because i know the mentality might be different.

Here’s what I see: Outrageously expensive land costs, next to impossible to acquire loans, government that mostly has its foot on growth in the area of agriculture. Could it not be the case that majority cannot afford to take the risk?

Apart from the factors you just listed which can be inhibitory many are hardly interested.

We have tons of people in Agricultural degrees in that country, at least a substantial number of them ought to be interested. I am not sure why else people would not want to go into agriculture, I think it is lucrative business but due to the expensive cost starting in such an area, I would see why more people would rather work in other areas.

Mentality.Those peeps that have the degrees in agric as u stated are they really interested in agric or they just did it to answer graduates?

Remember in naija these days people just go to university to answer graduate and have paper certificate but might not be interested in the course they did.

i'd rather chase customers to open up accounts in a bank than be a farmer with my agric-eng degree. who wants to be a farmer? kele's no go dey rush me if dem know say i be farmer.

ok seriously, ignore the above. there are a lot of factors thats making people not think of the agricultural sector in nigeria with the potential it has of being BIG BUSINESS.

nothings wrong with being a farmer, especially those who are deep in poverty working in plants like these can help feed their family.

Nothing's wrong with being a farmer, but everythings wrong with our government.
No one wants to work for free.

when people hear the words agriculture, farmer, farming. the first thot that comes to them is a man who leaves his house at 4am. walks 10Km with his hoe and cutlass in hand, going to make yam mounds and cassava/corn ridges all on a 10X10 lot. and that is the thot the government has about farming and agriculture as well.

Land acquisition for large scale farming remains one of the biggest obstacles in Nigeria.

Most of the land is family held, and progressively gets divided into smaller and smaller plots with lower yield and archaic production methods.

Till the land use act is reformed and people get better access to funding, Agriculture will not increase.

Not too sure it should be the focus anyways - as far as I know, palm oil production in Nigeria is sufficient for local use. I believe we should focus on increasing food production to meet local demand so resources spent on imports can be diverted to other productive use.

Don't mind all them leaders. The Malaysians actually came to Nigeria in the 70s to take our palm oil seeds. Now they have super plantations but we still dey wait for National cake from oil.

Well, for anyone to discuss this topic, you have to understand the history of NIFOR (the Nigerian Institute For Oilpalm Research) , the British colonialists, World War 2, the German blockade of African routes and the transfer of Nigerian Oilpalm technology and hybrids by the British to Indonesia. To simply get an idea of this, imagine the amount of Crude Oil exported from Sudan to China. If the Somali pirate problem gets worse China moves It's business to Russia, don't start to blame the Sudanese.

Have you people stopped to ask yourselves the percentage of Cassava, Yams, Tomatoes and Beans we were producing back then? We were producing food and saw materials for Europe while dying of hunger. Even today, Cocoa producers still struggle with exports. Some seasons, they have to destroy their harvest by burning, rather than export them at the cheap prices European commodity traders want to pay.

We want to cry about Oilpalm and Groundnuts everytime but what about Cassava? Cassava was brought to Nigeria from Brazil, but Nigeria went into production for our own consumption and sustenance and now Nigeria is the world largest producer of Cassava. And yes! We're now even exporting it to the United Kingdom and China. Only a couple of years ago, we were importing almost all the poultry products we consume. Now we're exporting to South Africa. Look at how many people are producing Catfish.

Nigerians will engage in Agriculture if it makes sense and if it makes money. Let's stop pursuing the Colonial dream. Let's produce what we need and teach the world how to use it.

@debosky Land Reform is necessary, but I will never use my land to produce Oilpalm, Cocoa or Cotton. "I nor go chop?"

If Nigeria should go back to massive production of Oilpalm, we'll drive world prices very low and both us and Indonesia will suffer and the British will laugh. That's why the BBC is trying to cajole us back to the plantations. "Make dem sef go farm if na so dem like drink palm oil jare."

dnex:

We want to cry about Oilpalm and Groundnuts everytime but what about Cassava? Cassava was brought to Nigeria from Brazil, but Nigeria went into production for our own consumption and sustenance and now Nigeria is the world largest producer of Cassava. And yes! We're now even exporting it to the United Kingdom and China. Only a couple of years ago, we were importing almost all the poultry products we consume. Now we're exporting to South Africa. Look at how many people are producing Catfish.

Yes am in agreement with this.
Cassava Production is profitable and the aspect we need to explore is profiting from the its by-products. There's hardly any manufacturing company that wont make use of cassava by products instead of continual importation, this challenge can be overcome with more Research and Developement and proper marketing of these finished products. Check here for more http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5548e/y5548e01.htm

.

its good to have a diversified economy, but if your economy is solely dependent on agriculture, then you risk ending up a banana republic like the carribean and south american countries.
Agricultural products are susceptible to price fluctuations which could be dangerous for economies because unlike oil, agricultural products like palm oil don't have inelastic demand, in other words, if price increases people just jump ship to another products and when the govts cannot get enough revenue from agriculture to meet there obligations, they end up printing money which leads to inflation and leads the country to a vicious cycle of poverty.

That governor is crying for nothing. Instead of weeping or feeling sorry for Nigeria, let him start doing something now to make sure that we can begin producing exportable amounts of this oil in future.

Take a look at what Saraki did when Mugabe threw those white farmers out of Zimbabwe. He took the initiative, invited some of those farmers to Nigeria, provided them with ample and fertile land (i dont know if he gave it to them for free or worked out some terms of payment) and encouraged them to start farms - which they did.

Like previous posters have stated, there are hundreds of thousands of agric graduates in Nigeria and more continue to graduate yearly. We have dedicated agric universities in nigeria (abeokuta, umudike, makurdi etc) with people who have some knowledge of agriculture. We have IITA, and NIFOR. Why cant that governor invite these people to encourage the return to this oil production?

If we look closely, you will find out that after he cried for Nigeria, nothing happened. He wiped his tears and returned to his daily tasks - maybe even trying to work out how he would return to his government seat for his second term

There are so many intelligent beings on nairaland who are always ready to proffer solutions anytime there are questions on how to move nigeria forward. While I will keep encouraging these sharp brains to keep voicing out these intelligent solutions, I want to also remind us that there are already tonnes of written and verbal developmental reports on the tables of your leaders.

However, all those reports and ours here wont make any difference until we decide to question and hold the greedy and corrupt nigerian leaders accountable for bad leadership.
Until then, all these intellects are more or less, waste.