Agriculture to account for more than 90% in Kogi State
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises is the engine for economic growth and development and are also known to contribute heavily to employment generation if well supported. In Nigeria, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) employment generation is projected to reach 60 million by 2021 according to document from National Bureau of Statistics sighted by MSMEs Today. This is contained in a survey conducted on MSMEs by the National Bureau of Statistics between 2013 and 2017. The document shows that additional 92,114 employments will added to the existing 59.6 million in 2017.
In comparison with the past years, MSMEs employment generation in 2021 is expected to be higher by 0.15% compared with employment of 59.6 million generated by 41.5 million MSMES in 2017 and 2.38% lesser than 59.7 million employment generated by 37.1 million MSMEs in 2013. The close margin between the employment proposed for 2021 and actual employment generated in 2017 is attributed to a projected decline of about 1.1 million in Micro enterprises employment generation in 2021 due to challenges of securing capital for their business. However, the projected MSMEs employment generation by 2021 is expected to reduce the national unemployment rate by 0.4% using the NBS employment report of second quarter of year 2020.
Despite the projected drop in Micro Enterprises employment generation in 2021, our finding shows that micro enterprises (ME) is to accounts for 93.24% while Small and Medium Enterprises is to accounts for the remaining 6.76% of the total employment expected from MSMEs by 2021. On the other hand, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) employment generation is expected to grow by 39.8% from 2.9 million in 2017 to 4.0 million in 2021. The number of SMEs expected to be responsible for this employment generation is also projected to increase by 106% from 73,081 in 2017 to 150,642 by 2021.
Looking at the state angle, MSME employment generation in Kogi state is expected to grow by 69.36% to 2.2 million in 2021 from 1.2 million in 2017. More of the projected employment generation is expected to come from Agriculture accounting for close to 90%. This development in Kogi state is attributed to various interventions into MSMEs in the state such as MSMEs survival fund by Federal Government to alleviate the finance challenges of MSME due to Covid-19 pandemic in which close to 35,000 MSMEs in Kogi State benefitted from. Other interventions include Federal Government distribution of improved seeds of priority crops in the state. The distributed farm inputs to the state agricultural sector includes 38,142kg of improved cashew seeds to 3,798 cashew farmers and 27,000kg of certified sesame seeds to 5,400 sesame farmers. “Others are 50,000kg of soybeans seeds for distribution to soybeans farmers and 12,000 bundles of Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato (OFSP) for 1,200 potato farmers.
Other state includes Gombe state with projected growth of 63.91% from 669,883 employments generated in 2017 to 1,098,019 employment in 2021. Abia, which is next to Gombe state, MSMEs employment generation in the state is expected to grow by 35.10%, Katsina with growth of 27.22%, Ebonyi with growth of 20.79%, Kebbi with growth of 20.04%, Delta with growth of 17.93%, Cross rivers with growth of 17.52 among others.
