At the recently concluded Oyo State International Agribusiness Summit 2025, held at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, Prof. Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, a former Senior Special Adviser on Industrialisation to the African Development Bank, delivered a stark assessment of Nigeria’s agricultural sector. He insisted that industrialising agriculture is the only sustainable pathway to economic growth, food security, and poverty reduction in the country.
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, a development economist and visiting professor at The Open University in the UK, painted a picture of a nation at a critical crossroads. Despite being blessed with vast, fertile lands, Nigeria remains a food-deficit nation, importing wheat, rice, sugar, and fish. The ex-AfDB adviser lamented the country’s over N1 trillion annual food import bill, which he said hurts farmers, displaces local production, fuels unemployment, and cripples agro-processing and manufacturing.
He argued that Nigeria’s growth trajectory has remained weak because agriculture is still treated as a subsistence sector rather than a science-driven, value-adding industry. “You can not build a competitive economy on the back of raw commodity exports and food imports. That model guarantees poverty. Real development begins when agriculture feeds industry and industry feeds exports,” he stressed.
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka criticised Nigeria’s constant policy flip-flops, especially import bans and sudden reversals, arguing that such decisions destroy farmers’ confidence and cripple private investment. He maintained that countries that transformed their economies, such as Brazil, Malaysia, and Vietnam, did so by integrating agriculture with processing, storage, logistics, and manufacturing. He urged Nigeria to prioritise research-driven production, mechanisation, farmer financing, and market-linked value chains to unlock real industrial growth.
The professor added that without urgent reforms, Nigeria will continue to experience food inflation, job losses, and declining productivity despite having one of the continent’s largest youth populations. “This economy will not grow on oil. It must grow on the agro-industrial value chain. That is where the future is,” he insisted.
Meanwhile, Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde highlighted his administration’s efforts to reposition agriculture as a business rather than a subsistence activity. He mentioned partnerships with research institutes like IITA and the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria to modernise farming models. Makinde also highlighted progress on the state’s Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones, which he said will create investment-ready clusters that will drive jobs and exports.
The Director-General of the Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency, Dr. Debo Akande, described the state as “the agribusiness industrial hub of Nigeria.” He referenced Nigeria’s continued export of raw commodities without adding value, contrasting it with Brazil’s US$125 billion export value, 72 per cent of which is processed food.
The Belgian Ambassador, Peter Lindner, commended the Oyo State Government for aligning with global best practices and reaffirmed Belgium’s support for agribusiness cooperation in Nigeria.
The implications of Oyelaran-Oyeyinka’s insights are profound. For Nigeria to achieve economic transformation, it must shift its approach to agriculture. This means moving away from subsistence farming and embracing science-driven, value-adding industrialisation. It also means stabilising policies to foster private investment and creating an enabling environment for agro-industrial growth. The Oyo State government’s initiatives, as highlighted by Governor Makinde, could serve as a model for other states, demonstrating how strategic partnerships and investments can drive agro-industrial development.