An agriculturist and founding president/chief executive officer of Animal Care Services Limited, Dr. Olatunde Agbato, has observed that Nigeria's agricultural sector has enormous potential with an opportunity to grow output by 160 per cent from the US$99bn it presently generates to US$256bn by 2030.

This growth potential, he explained, could be achieved from increasing crop yields to 80-100 per cent of international benchmarks, cultivating 14million hectares of new agricultural land (approximately 38 per cent of Nigeria's unused available land of 36.9m hectares) and shift 20 per cent of production to higher value agricultural produce.

Agbato lamented that Nigeria, despite its enormous potential in agriculture, had chosen to neglect the sector, and failed to tap the huge opportunities to grow and expand its economy and reduce reliance on oil earnings. He said this while delivering the second convocation lecture of the Landmark University, Omu Aran, Kwara State, entitled, "Inclusive Agriculture: A Catalytic Trigger for Non-Oil Dependent Economy."

The lecturer highlighted the current yields of some crops in Nigeria as against international benchmark. For maize, 1.5 tons per hectare against 7-8 tons; groundnut - 400kg per hectare against 2.700kg in Turkey; onions - 4 metric tons per hectare against 120 tons in Yemen; tomatoes - 5tons per hectare against 100tons in Israel; rice - 1.5tons per hectare against 20 tons in Thailand. He added that the country's milk yield from cattle was 300 litres per lactation as against 10,000 litres of international benchmark.

Agbato emphasized that Nigeria had a huge strength and potentials, having the most fertile land in the world, 79m hectares of agricultural land of which 40m is arable, regretting that over 40 per cent of arable land remains uncultivated.

He observed that some developing nations, which shared similar antecedents with Nigeria, had deployed interventions in the agricultural sector to reduce poverty and enhance economic growth.