Experts Seek Measures to Make Renewable Natural Resources
 Competitive
 23rd JAN 2007

The African Institute of Applied Economics (AIAE) has called on the Federal Government to ensure adequate measures and policies to make Renewable Natural Resources (RNRs) more competitive and sustainable.

Recent research findings by the institution showed that agriculture would not deliver the desired levels of growth and poverty reduction if the past and the current scenarios of performance of RNRs did not improve significantly.

In a document made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Abuja, the institute said Nigeria required new capacities and better incentives for RNR-based sectors comprising agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

"Despite the dominance of the sector in government revenues and foreign exchange earnings, RNR-based sectors constitute the largest single share of the national output, income and employment,'' it said.

It said that greater political will was imperative to implement key policy and institutional reforms.

AIAE noted that this would assist in halting the degradation of Renewable Natural Resources (RNRs) and promote sustainable agricultural and environmental conservation.

It noted further that the poor management of RNRs has over the years undermined the potentials of agricultural and forestry to drive growth and poverty reduction.

It said that past policies had taken for granted that agriculture and forestry would continue to supply economic goods, drive growth and reduce poverty.

The report showed that RNR-based sectors are central to the country's realisation of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty by 2015.

In its analysis, it noted that agriculture and forestry had the highest poverty incidence of 67 per cent among all the economic sectors and over 62 per cent of Nigerians in agriculture are poor.

The rural sector contributes 65 per cent to national poverty and 86 per cent of the households engaged in agriculture lives in the rural areas, it said.

"More than seven of every 10 farmers are poor and six of every 10 poor households are farmers,'' it said.

The AIAE said further that the growth in the RNR-based sectors would provide essentials for improving the welfare of the vast majority of the Nigeria's poor.

It stated that farm productivity and production costs largely determine the process of the basic foodstuffs, which accounts for 52-60 per cent of total household consumption expenditures by the lowest 60 per cent of the country's population.

The institute said reduction in poverty would depend to a large extent on the success of the tiers of government in stimulating broad-based and sustainable agricultural growth.

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