Of the thirty-six States in Nigeria, only seven States and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, attracted foreign investments in the first half of 2022, as listed by the National Bureau of Statistics. It is however worthy of note that the Seyi Makinde led Oyo State is one of these 7 States, attracting Two Million in dollars ($2 million) worth of foreign direct investment.

It is also imperative to note that the Seyi Makinde led Oyo State is premised on four cardinal points, one of which is to make Oyo State the fastest growing economy in Nigeria. More to note is that the major concentration of the administration to achieve this particular goal is AGRIBUSINESS.

The Governor Seyi Makinde modern agribusiness strategy and programmes that is focused towards creating an enabling environment and policy to attract investors, is yielding a great result. This result is reflected in his revelation that the State, under his administration, has attracted over 23 billion naira worth of investments in agribusiness and 125 million dollars worth of development partners’-blended finances for rural roads, agro-logistics, markets, and industrial hubs, all still centered towards agribusiness, priding in his administration’s efforts towards the sector; considering these, one can apparently deduce that Oyo State must have attracted its foreign investments through this same sector, being the major contributor to lifting the State’s Internally Generated Revenue(IGR) to 15 billion naira without increasing taxes.

While the State is increasing in attraction of the investors across the agribusiness value chain and making its huge contributions to the economy of the State, it has simultaneously been playing its fundamental and subsistent role of providing food in abundance to the people of Oyo State.

This is also reflected in a recent report of the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS), 2022, where annual production of diverse crops are aggregated. Synonymous to all the crops productions in Oyo State within the last three years is the exponential increase in the annual production and land cultivated attributed to small and medium agribusiness increase investment across the value chain in Oyo State.

Between the four crops of cassava, maize, soybean and yam alone, there is an increase of close to 40,000 hectares area of land cultivated between 2020 and 2021, a complete opposite direction from what has been experienced between 2013 to 2019. The total area harvested for Soybean more than doubled (121%) in 2021 compared to the baseline year(2013). Most increases were observed in 2020 and 2021 with approximately 25% increase, while yam harvested in Oyo State increased sharply from 130,000 ha in 2013 to 350,000 ha in 2021.

Soybean production in Oyo State has increased by 49.9% in less than 10 years; having an approximate increase in production of 4% year-on-year in the last three years as compared to before 2019; and about a 25% increase per hectare in the total harvested area in the last three years, especially between 2020 and 2021, resulting in the most increase experienced in over 10 years period.

The maize production as well didn’t hoard its benevolence despite some seemingly difficult production difficulties said to have been encountered, particularly climate change with erratic rainfall pattern and security, which was noted to have been resolved through effective policies and kind gestures to farmers by the Seyi Makinde led administration, yielding a steady increase in harvest per hectare of maize.

The trend for Soybean and Maize in Oyo State has also been the same for Cassava and Yam, whereby the yield in tons of yams decreased drastically between 2013 to 2016, but has been witnessing stability since 2020, and is looking forward to increase.

A Yoruba adage states, “when hunger is no longer a bone of contention, then the rest of the problems are also as good as resolved.” Seyi Makinde is indeed lifting Oyo State from poverty to prosperity through agribusiness.

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