Although the Nigerian agricultural value chain is highly underdeveloped, it is estimated to be worth $85 billion. The continent of Africa holds 60% of arable land which are uncultivated in the world and 13% of those are in Nigeria, only 34 million hectares have been cultivated from 82 million hectares of arable land.

Agriculture’s contribution to the nation’s GDP and export earnings have steadily declined from 1970 to the late 2000s, due to Nigeria’s focus shifted to petroleum exploration. The agricultural sector has contributed an average of 23.5% to the country’s national GDP and generated 5.1% of export earnings over the past five years.

The fall in the prices of crude oil has triggered conversations around the role of Agriculture in the economic diversification of the country.

THE NIGERIAN AGRICULTURAL VALUE CHAIN
The agricultural value chain goes beyond the activities around smallholder farmers and consumers; it gives added value at each stage of the production, marketing and consumption process. The World Bank defined the term “value chain’’ as the “full range of activities that firms and workers do to bring a product from its conception to its end use and beyond.”

The agriculture sector is still largely underdeveloped, in spite of the policy interventions by the Government, mainly because the focus has been on production, rather than on improving value addition across the value chain.

In order to enhance productivity and create a multiplier effect on the value chain segments. A significant mindset shift is needed, the government’s focus should be on investments that encourage increased productivity and the ability to capture a higher value includes the following key areas: transport infrastructure; power for processing, chilling, drying, and or packaging produce; research and extension services in new storage practices, processing and packaging technologies; and ‎‎education and training in product marketing.

Source: https://babbangona.com/fundamentals-of-the-nigerian-agricultural-value-chain/