From rural abundance to rural prosperity: The agricultural opportunity in Egbe
Egbe, like most rural communities in Nigeria, has not made much progress in improving livelihoods, rural infrastructure or the quality of life of rural dwellers since Nigeria’s independence in 1960. You are twice as likely to be poor if you live in rural Nigeria as you are if you live in urban Nigeria.
And yet, Nigeria’s rural areas are a lush paradise, where crops, livestock, vegetables and fruits are produced in abundance to feed the cities.
As a young child in the early 1970s, my parents drove two or three times a year from Kainji, New Bussa—currently in Niger State—where I was born and lived until I went to high school in Egbe, to Ibadan, Oyo State, to shop for school supplies and Christmas and to visit friends and relatives.
There was a town called Fiditi between Oyo and Ibadan that was known for its abundance of fruits. We always stopped there to buy fruits and foodstuffs for acquaintances in Ibadan and for ourselves on our way home. The same could be said of many towns along the Ilorin-Ibadan highway.
So why are communities that produce abundant food languishing in excruciating poverty despite the strong and growing markets of a populous and rapidly growing country?
The answer is all around us across the entire continent.
African agriculture suffers from low productivity—often only about one-third of the global average for many crops—and is disconnected from processing hubs and packing houses because of weak value-added chains. Farmers face a lack of reliable energy, digital connectivity, rural roads and storage infrastructure. They depend heavily on imported seeds and blended fertiliser and have limited access to the right forms of credit to purchase increasingly expensive inputs. Farmer extension services remain weak, and investment in value addition is inadequate.
The case of farm inputs is particularly troubling. Africa produces about 30 million tonnes of the nutrients needed by crops—nitrogen, primarily as urea; phosphate; and some potash—but imports about 12 million tonnes of blended fertiliser such as NPK and DAP, representing roughly 80 percent of the continent’s needs. This exposes African farmers to every imaginable shock suffered by global supply chains, from COVID-19 to the Russia-Ukraine war and the Iran crisis and blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Fertiliser prices have tripled for farmers, especially following changes in exchange rates, while crop prices have fallen sharply in some markets over the past two years, partly because of food imports that are not tied to local production.
Given such conditions, agriculture cannot function as a viable business. It becomes a way of life, with grinding poverty as the outcome.
The cotton paradox
Let me use a single example of the impossible odds that farmers in rural Nigeria face. I will use cotton in West Africa, a value chain for which the region and Nigeria are well known.
West Africa has an estimated 4,000 garment industries and SMEs making clothes, but just 51 ginning and spinning mills. Compare that with Bangladesh—approximately 4,000 garment industries but 250 ginning and spinning mills.
The paucity of ginning, spinning and weaving capacity means that the region’s production of about 1.1 million tonnes of raw cotton lint is exported 90 per cent as raw lint, at a total value of about $1 billion.
The continent, in turn, imports more than 60,000 tonnes of fabric valued at $2 billion and, in the process, exports half a million jobs.
But the region can potentially earn $5 billion if the major value chain gap can be closed: converting lint into yarn and then fabric through a regional value chain, while creating approximately 500,000 jobs.
That is the difference between producing a commodity and building an industry.
Back to Egbe: Turning agriculture into businesses and jobs
Going back to Egbe, how can agriculture create rural businesses and jobs that turn rural communities from places people leave into places where people can build prosperous lives?
We can borrow a leaf from the champions who have transformed communities elsewhere.
We can choose to invest not merely in the problems we see today but also in the institutions, infrastructure and economic opportunities that will change the trajectory of rural communities for generations to come.
But how do we do this?
First, the economic opportunities.
Egbe has five major opportunities—there are many more—for wealth creation based on its natural resources and the experiences of its people.
1. Vegetable and fish production
Vegetables and fish, especially catfish and tilapia, can be produced at the approximately 2,000-hectare Omi/Kampe irrigation scheme and in other inland valleys.
The opportunity extends beyond production. With the right investment, Egbe can develop an integrated value chain encompassing fish production, vegetable farming, irrigation, cold storage, transportation, packaging and market distribution.
2. Rice production
Rice production is another major opportunity at the 2,000-hectare Omi/Kampe irrigation scheme and other inland valleys.
There is already a 36,000-tonne rice mill at Ejiba that is underutilised.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply to produce rice. It is to organise production at sufficient scale and reliability to support processing capacity and connect farmers to profitable markets.
3. Tree-crop farming and sustainable agroforestry
Tree-crop farming, especially cashew, oil palm, cocoa and timber, offers another significant opportunity.
The indiscriminate logging of rosewood, the red-coloured timber, from the area and its shipment in container loads to China represents not only environmental deforestation but also a lost economic opportunity.
Egbe could instead develop a sustainable agroforestry industry combining responsible timber production, reforestation and commercial tree crops.
The objective should be to create wealth from the forest without destroying the resource on which future generations will depend.
4. Crop-Livestock Farming
Crop-livestock farming offers another opportunity: producing cassava, maize and soybean to support the fattening of goats, sheep and poultry for local consumption and for markets in surrounding cities and states.
This integrated approach can improve productivity while creating multiple income streams for farmers.
Crop residues can support livestock, while livestock manure can contribute to soil fertility. Rather than treating crop and livestock production as separate activities, farmers can build an interconnected agricultural system.
5. Agro-industrialisation
The fifth and perhaps most transformative opportunity is agro-industrialisation.
Vertical integration is at the heart of strong agricultural value chains. Agro-industry could begin with relatively simple infrastructure: packing houses for vegetables, drying kilns and cold-chain facilities for fish, sawmills for wood, oil mills for palm fruit, rice processing and storage facilities, and feed mills for livestock and poultry.
Given Nigeria’s dire need for energy and skilled employment, agro-processing is best clustered in an agro-industrial park within or near the town.
This concept had been tried before, not too far from Egbe, under Nigeria’s erstwhile minister of agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, but was discontinued under subsequent administrations.
The lesson is that good ideas need institutions capable of surviving changes in government.
From opportunity to reality
So how do we translate these opportunities into reality?
It requires capacity for efficient production—from modern food production technologies to mechanisation and agricultural extension. It requires a clearer overview of existing and planned investments in agro-processing and coordinated market information to help buyers and partners assess scale, supply reliability and value-chain governance.
There is also a dire need to mobilise longer-term, lower-cost capital and de-risking instruments for private-sector investors.
Technical-assistance grants are equally important to develop bankable projects and ensure access to credit for all actors across the value chains.
And then there is the elephant in the room: security.
The security of farms, processing plants and the lives of their owners and workers is fundamental in the face of banditry, kidnapping and criminality in the area.
It is a classic chicken-and-egg situation: no viable farms or businesses exist, so there is little investment in providing security. Yet without security, investors will not come.
I farmed cassava without problems for nearly a decade at Apaa, some 110 kilometres from Egbe toward Lokoja, and I had policemen and armed local vigilantes as my security solution.
There is a broader historical lesson here. In the western United States in the late 1800s, improvements in security, property protection, transportation and rural infrastructure helped create the conditions in which commercial agriculture could take root.
For Egbe today, the answer must similarly involve creating an environment in which farmers and investors can safely commit capital for the long term. That means legitimate security partnerships, better roads, communications, early-warning systems and stronger coordination between communities and government security agencies.
Security is not an afterthought to agricultural development. It is part of the infrastructure required for it.
So who will bell the cat?
Who will bring all this to happen?
First and foremost, organised business must take the lead.
Existing and interested processors, producer organisations, commodity associations, aggregators, chambers of commerce and other concerned citizens need to come together as the core of a platform to sketch out the opportunities in greater detail.
Development banks, such as the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) and Bank of Industry (BOI); development partners; and philanthropic organisations, including the Dangote Foundation, should be invited to join the platform.
The Dangote Cement factory at Obajana is approximately 136 kilometres from Egbe toward Lokoja, creating a potentially important link to the broader industrial ecosystem.
Next, providers of technology and agricultural research should be invited to participate. These include the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), headquartered in Ibadan; WorldFish, with a station in Ibadan; AfricaRice, with a station in Ibadan; the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), also with a station in Ibadan; the national research centres; and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Lastly, the Yagba West Local Government, the Agriculture Department of the state government and political figures from Egbe should be invited to join the platform.
This triple helix of agribusiness, research and development, and government is the scaffold on which success must rest.
Businesses bring investment, markets and commercial discipline. Research institutions bring technology, knowledge and productivity improvements. The government provides the enabling environment, infrastructure, regulation and security.
None can do it alone.
Egbe has its champions
I have no doubt in my mind that this can be done.
Egbe and the surrounding communities have enough public-spirited people to champion such a platform. The evidence is already before us.
Senator Sunday Karimu, an old student of Titcombe College, is one example. He single-handedly built a computer-based testing (CBT) centre at Titcombe College, an investment that contributed to the school’s students achieving a 100 percent pass rate in the recent national WAEC examinations.
The strong Titcombe College Old Students Association (TCEOSA) has also contributed immensely to rebuilding some of the school’s crumbling infrastructure.
These achievements are more than isolated acts of generosity. They demonstrate that Egbe’s people possess the commitment, resources and organisational capacity to solve difficult problems when they unite around a shared purpose.
Communities do not always have to wait for the government before taking action.
They can organise. They can mobilise resources. They can build institutions. They can attract partners.
The same spirit that has been applied to education can now be applied to agriculture, enterprise and rural development.
A rural future worth building
This is ultimately bigger than Egbe.
Across Nigeria’s rural communities, well-meaning individuals, businesses, governments and development organisations must make the most of the blessings with which these communities have been endowed: land, good weather, rivers, natural resources and able-bodied people.
The question is not whether rural Nigeria has resources.
It does.
The question is whether we will build the institutions, infrastructure, markets, technology, capital and security systems necessary to turn those resources into sustainable prosperity.
For too long, rural communities have been treated as places from which people must escape. Young people leave because there are few jobs. Farmers produce without reliable markets. Raw materials leave without being processed. Roads deteriorate, businesses close and families lose hope.
That cycle is not inevitable.
Egbe can become more than a place where people grow crops and leave in search of opportunities elsewhere. It can become a place where people grow crops, process them, build businesses, create jobs, raise families and choose to stay.
It can become a place where a young person does not have to leave home to find dignity, opportunity and a future.
That is the real opportunity before us.
A call to action
The time has come to move from conversation to coordination, and from coordination to execution.
I call on Egbe’s business leaders, farmers, processors, professionals, traditional leaders, community organisations, political representatives and members of the diaspora to come together and establish an Egbe/Yagba West Agricultural and Rural Development Platform.
Its first task should be practical:
1. Map the land, farmers, water resources, existing businesses, processing facilities and infrastructure.
2. Identify the most promising value chains and the investors required to develop them.
3. Prepare bankable projects for rice, vegetables, fish, tree crops, livestock and agro-processing.
4. Convene development banks, research institutions, government agencies, security authorities and private investors.
5. Develop a clear plan for roads, energy, storage, irrigation, extension services, market access and farm security.
6. Set measurable targets for jobs, investment, farmer incomes, processing capacity and youth participation.
This platform should not be another committee that produces reports and disappears. It should have a clear mandate, responsible leaders, timelines, financing targets and public accountability.
Those who have benefited from Egbe should contribute knowledge, capital, networks or time. Those with political influence should use it to secure infrastructure and public services. Those with businesses should invest in production and processing. Those in the diaspora should help connect Egbe to markets, technology and finance.
Young people should be trained not only as farmers but also as technicians, entrepreneurs, processors, logistics providers and digital service providers.
The government must provide an enabling environment. Businesses must bring investment and discipline. Research institutions must bring technology and knowledge. Communities must provide leadership, participation and accountability.
No single person can transform Egbe. But a coordinated community can change its trajectory.
The first investment does not have to be enormous. It could begin with a meeting of committed stakeholders, a shared database of opportunities, a feasibility study, a pilot farm, the rehabilitation of an existing processing facility or a security and access-road initiative.
What matters is that the first step is taken—and that it is followed by a second, a third and a sustained programme of action.
Egbe has waited long enough.
The land is there. The water is there. The farmers are there. The markets are there. The knowledge, talent and goodwill are there.
What is needed now is organisation, courage and execution.
And perhaps, after giving us land, water, good weather and able people, the question we should ask ourselves is not what more God must do for us, but what we are prepared to do with what we have already been given.
Let the stakeholders of Egbe come together, form the platform, choose the priorities and begin the work. The future of Egbe should not be something we merely hope for. It should be something we build—one farm, one business, one job and one institution at a time. Don Campion has shown us the way; we should borrow a leaf from him and take responsibility for the prosperity of our people.
Dr Wiebe Boer, Chief Growth Officer, the JIPA Network; Member, BusinessDay Advisory Board; Author, The History of Football in Nigeria.
