Nigeria has an important agri-business sector that has been neglected for a long time because of the country’s oil-dominated economy. In order to reduce its food bill, Africa’s most populous nation is now focusing on how to boost agricultural production. However, about millions of Nigerians would need to not only produce food, but also to process it. In this opinion piece, published in the Nigerian publication This Day, Simon Kolawole calls for the development of agro-industries saying: “Let us break this whole agric logic into pieces. If we really want to diversify from oil and create proper value, agriculture must give birth to industry. If agriculture currently employs some 5 million Nigerians, agro-allied industry can employ 15 million in the value chain. So why do we spend so much time discussing farming and not industry?”
 
Read the article: http://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2016/08/21/agriculture-is-not-the-magic-solution/