To put the challenges Nigeria is facing in perspective, in the past 20 years, value-added per capita in agriculture has risen by less than 1 percent annually. This simply means that in the past 20 years, the contribution of Agriculture to the livelihoods of an average Nigerian is next to nothing.
FAO estimates that Nigeria has lost $10 billion in annual export opportunity cocoa, palm oil, maize, groundnut, and cotton alone because of a continuous decline in the production of those commodities. While the food production in the country is declining, the population growth is not slowing down, to sustain itself over the years, Nigeria has had to rely on food importation.
To make matters worse, the effects of the pandemic caused disruption in food security and it raised a lot of questions about food insecurity not only in Africa but the world. More than ever, initiatives like these are needed in the country right now seeing how the pandemic is affecting the Agriculture value chain and food systems in Nigeria.
