A former senior adviser to the African Development Bank (AfDB) has urged Nigeria to industrialise its agricultural sector as a critical pathway to food security, economic diversification and sustainable job creation.
Professor Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, former Senior Special Adviser on Industrialisation to the President of the African Development Bank, made the call while delivering a lecture at the Oyo State Economic Summit held at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan. His lecture was titled Industrialising Agriculture for Economic Development and Food Security: Enhancing National Economies and Sub-National Entities.
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka warned that despite Nigeria’s vast arable land and its status as one of the world’s leading producers of crops such as cassava and yam, the country remains food-deficient and heavily reliant on expensive food imports.
He noted that Nigeria spends more than ₦1 trillion annually importing staples including wheat, rice, sugar and fish—an unsustainable trend that drains foreign exchange, weakens local farmers, undermines industrial competitiveness and contributes to unemployment.
According to the development economist, the solution lies in transforming agriculture from a largely subsistence activity into a modern, industrial enterprise capable of generating surplus production, supporting manufacturing and driving broad-based economic growth.
“Industrialising agriculture does not mean replacing rural communities with factories,” he said. “It means empowering farmers with technology, skills, infrastructure and market access to raise productivity and incomes.”
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka argued that Nigeria’s low agricultural productivity reflects deeper structural weaknesses, including poor education systems, limited technical skills and insufficient investment in technology and infrastructure. He pointed out that countries that successfully transitioned from low-income to middle-income status modernised agriculture alongside industrial development, creating strong linkages between farms, processing industries and markets.
Highlighting global comparisons, he said cereal yields across Africa remain less than a third of those achieved in East Asia, a disparity that helps explain why many African economies struggle to compete internationally and why industrialisation efforts have stalled.
He outlined key pillars for agricultural industrialisation, including mechanisation, value addition, integrated supply chains, access to finance, improved seed systems and targeted investment in human and technological capabilities. Farms, he stressed, must be treated as “factories without roofs,” feeding into agro-processing, manufacturing and export industries.
Drawing lessons from Vietnam, Oyelaran-Oyeyinka described how deliberate agricultural modernisation transformed the country from a food importer into one of the world’s leading exporters of rice, coffee, cashew and seafood. Vietnam’s agribusiness exports now generate tens of billions of dollars annually and underpin its wider industrial success.
He attributed this transformation to consistent policies, heavy investment in agro-processing, strong farmer–industry linkages and the strategic use of special economic zones to drive value addition and export competitiveness.
While similar models are beginning to emerge in Nigeria—including in Oyo State—he cautioned that success depends on reliable infrastructure, policy stability and empowered governance.
The professor called on state governments to prioritise power supply, road networks and logistics, strengthen agricultural extension services and develop efficient special agro-industrial processing zones capable of attracting major domestic and international investors.
He also urged the private sector to view agriculture as a profitable business frontier rather than a social obligation, arguing that Nigeria’s long-term prosperity depends less on oil and more on unlocking the productive potential of its land and people.
“We are a nation that can feed itself and others, yet we remain food-insecure and overly dependent on imports,” he said. “This paradox continues to hold back our economy.”
“Subsistence agriculture is both a cause and a consequence of technological backwardness,” Oyelaran-Oyeyinka added. “No country has reached middle-income status without first modernising its agriculture.”
“The seeds of Nigeria’s prosperity are not buried in oil wells,” he concluded. “They are sown in the fertile soils of our ecological zones.”