Recently Signed Agricultural Agreement Between Nigeria and Brazil Does Not Guarantee Food Security
FFRC Calls for People-Centered Policies and Programmes Linked with Massive Government Investments in Agriculture and Social Services
The attention of the Food and Farmers’ Rights Campaigns (FFRC) has been drawn to the recent agricultural agreement signed between President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria and his Brazilian counterpart, President Lula da Silva, during the former recent working visit to Brazil. While details of the said agreement remain sketchy, a statement by the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), whose Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Ayo Sotinrin, served as a signatory for the Nigerian government, with president Tinubu as witness, praises the signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as a “step in the right direction”.
It further avers that “under the MoU, both nations will collaborate on the co-development of urea projects for export to Brazil, joint investment in seed technologies for Nigeria in partnership with Brazil’s foremost agricultural research agency, and the creation of a credit facility to finance agricultural equipment. The facility is designed to support both small- and large-scale farmers from Nigeria and Brazil investing in Nigeria’s agriculture sector, thereby boosting productivity and strengthening food security.”
As far the FFRC is concerned, the skilfully coined phrases notwithstanding, even if the anticipated accruable benefits as stated by the BOA become realized, nothing concrete would likely come in the ways of the working people, ordinary farmers and poor majority in terms of improved living conditions. This ‘celebrated’ MoU touted as game-changer for increased agricultural productivity is more of a side-show. It is just to justify and validate the state visit in the first place, which gulped billions of tax payers’ money, amidst worsening economic hardship in the country. In other words, it’s all motion without movement, as nothing concrete will change in the agricultural value chains that would guarantee food security on a lasting basis.
The reason for this is not far-fetched. Under the current capitalist economic philosophy and arrangements, being superintended by the IMF and World Bank, fully subscribed to by the Bola Tinubu APC-led government and his Brazilian counterpart, the driving force and fundamental motives of any signed business agreement of this nature is ultimately to guarantee profits for some few rich private business sharks, in both countries. These business bosses parading as investors are nothing more than slave drivers who exploit the working people and poor with active collaboration of the public office holders to make super profits as return on investment through cheap labour and government waivers. Therefore, it’s in the interests of these fat cats that the said agreement was signed in Brazil, and nothing more.
Meanwhile, this is contrary to the ‘Salvation Mission’ narratives being pushed out to deceive the unsuspecting general public in the country, that the MoU would herald an Eldorado regarding food security and sovereignty. Therefore, the FFRC urges the working people and the poor not to have illusions in this signed agreement, as their social interests and economic needs can never be guaranteed under it even if there’s full implementation of the MoU by both countries. In any case, this is not the first agreement that both countries have entered into before now, without visible outcomes.
The FFRC recalls that early this year, “Nigeria and Brazil signed the commercial phase of the 1.1 billion dollars Green Imperative Project (GIP) to boost agriculture productivity and enhance private-sector investment in Nigeria. GIP is the largest agricultural project in Africa which prioritizes the development of sustainable, low-carbon agriculture. It aims to develop structural conditions to boost food production in Nigeria in an efficient and competitive manner. The MoU for the 1.1 billion dollars GIP 1 was signed in 2018, while the 4.3 billion dollars phase 2 of the project and the $2.5 billion JBS were signed in Brazil during President Bola Tinubu’s visit to that country in 2024”. (NAN, Tuesday March, 2025).
Similarly, in 2019, the late Buhari-led APC government, signed an MoU with the Development Bank of Brazil, securing a $1.2 billion loan to purportedly facilitate the availability of tractors and farm equipment for farmers, and thereby augment agricultural productivity and ensure food security! What later became of the outcomes of this MoU is left in the realms of conjecture, as nothing has been heard again of either the agreement or the said billions of dollars loan! Just to give a few examples.
We of the FFRC believe Nigeria as a country is richly blessed in both human and natural resources, that, if well managed, there may be no need for these endless MoU, that never benefit the majority. But for the capitalist system that has ensured that the collective wealth of the country is appropriated by a handful rich individuals in both public offices and the private sector. This is to the detriment of the Nigerian populace including the working people and poor majority, who ordinarily, shouldn’t have business with poverty and misery as it’s the case at present.
Again, this has also been compounded by the neo colonial nature of the Nigerian economy, with a rapacious and unproductive ruling class, and its position in the global capitalist arrangement, something which makes accomplishing even the basic task of industrialization in the country difficult. Worse still, these parasitic ruling elite deprive social sectors like healthcare, housing, education, agriculture, infrastructure, etc, of adequate public funds. Preferring instead to privatize, commercialize, deregulate through all kinds of phony arrangements, including Public Private Partnership (PPP), all in a bid to shove up profits for few rich, against meeting the needs of the majority.
In continuation of this, the Tinubu-led government’s implementation of anti-poor capitalist policies of fuel subsidy removal, devaluation of the naira, underfunding of public education, increased tax and electricity tariff, etc, just like his predecessors, has made the bad situation worse. These pro-rich policies have led to high costs of basic food stuffs, costs of living crisis, including rents, fee hikes in both public and private schools, increase costs of treatments and medicine in both private and public hospitals among others.
It’s against this background that the FFRC demands the return to public ownership of all privatized public enterprises including but not limited to the warehouses, silos, fertilizer companies in Kaduna and Port Harcourt, sold at giveaway prices by successive governments, including former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan etc, to themselves and their cronies. This should be linked with the reversal of anti-poor capitalist policies and the nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy, including the petroleum, financial institutions, construction industries, etc, placing same under the democratic management and control of workers, host community and relevant professional bodies. This is with a view to freeing resources and making same available for investments across all sectors, in addition to technology, science and research, including agricultural research centers that have been long abandoned, due to poor funding.
This way, not only would increased agricultural productivity be guaranteed, through planned and proper use of resources, the environment will also be protected to stem or mitigate climate unpredictability. In addition, it creates conditions for employment opportunities to significantly increase, food and other basic items to be affordable, quality public education and health care as well as affordable decent housing to be provided for the working people and mass poverty begins to become history. The challenge is that only a government run on the basis of democratic socialist planning can implement above measures and make possible these stated benefits. This is why we of the FFRC support every effort or initiative towards forming and building a mass working people on a socialist program that can fight for such a government.
Eko John Nicholas
National Coordinator
Food and Farmers’ Rights Campaigns (FFRC)
08022634850