What people need to understand about it is that every crop harvested and processed produces byproducts that are equal in to 3 or 4 times the value of the crop itself
And so, for example
Processed maize, soybean, cassava, etc will give several
Cotton and palm oil will produce so many products from processing, that several seperate outputs we buy like brake pads, soap, Carboxymethyl cellulose, etc
We buy all these products from other countries at the cost of our scarce hard currency, whereas they just process one or two crops, and sell us 20 different products.
It is this ignorance about the importance of agriculture that has plagued
When New Zealand, India and Netherlands sell us milk in millions of tons, are we aware they feed their cows from byproducts and waste which is produced while they process other crops in their manufacturing sector?
They feed their animals with
Thiw is what we are trying to replicate in Nigeria by promoting agriculture
Currently we allow almost 3/4 of our output to rot away because we prefer to import
Let's upgrade our abysmal ignorance about agriculture in this country.
Western nations can afford to subsidize agriculture because they more than compensate for it from the byproducts of processing the crop outputs.
They can afford to
Our masses are hungry, jobless, sick & uneducated, whereas we spend scarce resources importing food
We need to upgrade our understanding of how this world works, otherwise our trade rivals will keep taking us for a ride.
There is no "better" industry than agriculture.
End