Nigeria’s agric commodities import above N630bn –CBN

The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has decried the neglect of the agricultural sector by successive governments, saying Nigeria is now a net importer of agricultural produce with import bill of over N630 billion.
The governor who disclosed this on Thursday at a workshop organised by CBN and the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) on Innovative Agricultural Products, in Lagos, stated that the large import of food products include wheat, rice, flour, fish, tomato paste, textile and sugar.
Specifically, Emefiele disclosed that the insurance pillar of the Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) has been activated as this would help reduce risks associated with the sector.  “NIRSAL is built on five pillars
where 1st and 2nd pillars, which are risk-sharing and technical assistance have been activated, while the 3rd pillar is the insurance, which is being activated today.
This workshop signals the kick starting of the insurance pillar. We have the 4th and 5th pillars known as bank rating and bank incentive respectively.  The bank rating and the incentive can commence after the insurance pillar,” he said.
He, however, called for the development and expansion of the agricultural insurance sub-sector, as this would go a long way in mitigating natural disasters and eventually encouraging banks to lend to agriculture.
“Expansion of agricultural insurance products has become imperative especially now that climatic reports have it that Nigerian farmers are prone to risks from natural disasters such as flood, draught as well as different crop and livestock diseases,” he said.Emefiele, who was represented by the Acting Managing Director of NIRSAL, Edwin Nzelu, stated that with banks’ 4 per cent lending of all formal credit to the agricultural sector, the lending is still low because of the lingering perception by banks that agriculture is highly risky.
The CBN helmsman, however, emphasised the need to diversify the mono-cultural tendencies of the Nigerian economy by developing other sectors of the economy especially agriculture.
“We were known to be exporters of cocoa beans, gum Arabic, groundnuts, cotton, palm oil and many other agricultural commodities, but now, we import most of the agricultural commodities that we can produce because of the neglect of the sector in addition to rural migration to cities in search of white collar jobs,” CBN boss lamented.
Meanwhile, Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Mohammed Kari, said one of the objectives of the commission was to deepen insurance penetrating in the agric sector.
Kari, who was represented by the Deputy Director, Lagos office of NAICOM, Mr. Faruna Monday, however, urged private insurance companies to take advantage of this opportunity and consider extending insurance cover to the agricultural sector to create a competitive market, which will eventually increase insurance penetration to rural areas.
According to him, this will enhance the premium that will be generated and ultimately increase the contribution of the insurance industry to the gross domestic product  (GDP).