Nigeria and Economic Recession: Way out (5)

I suggested that agriculture should be left entirely to the States who are in the best position to formulate policies thereon. This week I intend to explore further means by which the cause of agriculture could be advanced in Nigeria. It is worthy to note that already an interesting trend seems to be emerging in the agricultural sector in Nigeria. Governments at all levels are waking up to the realization of the indispensable nature of the agricultural sector and are consequently making efforts towards redressing the neglects of the past decades. Youth unemployment in the country is also making more young people explore the potential of employment as well as wealth creation from the agricultural sector. It is gladdening now to see many young people, irrespective of their educational disciplines engage in varied forms of agriculture like poultry, fish farming, livestock and cropping. In this regard, it is heartwarming but the effort so far is little compared to the mountain of problems that the past decades of neglect in the agricultural areas has caused to the general psyche of the population towards agriculture and farming as a profession. Mechanised farming: Firstly, government must find a means of making more of our youths including university graduates embrace agriculture. The picture of agriculture with which many Nigerian youths including university graduates are familiar is that of the subsistence farmer toiling away with a hoe and a cutlass on his farmland. Without a doubt this is surely not a scenario or position to which most youths, least of all, university graduates will aspire. To achieve this government must set about making mechanised farming the order of the day. Most countries that earn revenue from agriculture have long ago realised and embraced the use of modern agricultural equipment. This must inevitably lead to the question as to how the average youth including university graduates will be expected to afford the huge cost of the purchase and maintenance of such heavy equipment. Purchase and maintennance of heavy equipment: Certainly no parent would encourage his or her child to embrace farming with cutlass and hoe. This leads to the second factor which government must introduce. To bring about mechanised farming as suggested, government must stop granting loans to party members purportedly to revive agriculture. It is common knowledge that most of Nigeria’s past administrations adopted the idea of granting loans for agricultural purposes mostly to party members. The problem with this approach is and has always been that most persons who are granted the loans divert same to other means including the funding of motor cycles and ostentatious lifestyles. The lack of proper or any form of monitoring encourages this practice. Therefore billions of Naira have been granted as loans to farmers in years past with nothing to show for it. Worse still, the loan could not and were never recovered. What government should do is to purchase modern farming equipment and site them at each or most local government areas in the federation. Where this is not feasible, they may be sited across senatorial districts or federal constituencies. After the equipment have been purchased and sited, farmers should be encouraged to form agricultural cooperative societies across the local government areas. Government will also establish task forces for each local government or according to the procedure it has adopted siting the farm equipment. When this is put in place farmers who are members of the agricultural cooperative societies should then be encouraged to open accounts with the local government and apply for the use of the equipment on their individual farms. Thus, rather than giving money directly to farmers to buy such equipment, government will fund, debit the account of the cooperative society which in turn will debit the account of each farmer for the use of the equipment on his or her farmland and of course monitor the use of the farm equipment through the task force established by government. Revival of agriculture To qualify for the use of the equipment, the government may stipulate conditions which every farmer must meet inclusive of such matters as the size of the land or the type of crops to be planted. In stating the above, I am aware that land and its availability is a condition precedent for the successful implementation of any policy geared towards the revival of agriculture in Nigeria. I note that owing to large scale rural-urban migration, most farmlands have been abandoned and sold off for the development of housing estate or other ventures not related to agriculture. Therefore, it will serve no useful purpose for government to invest in the purchase of farm agricultural equipment for use in farmlands the size of a football pitch. This will not augur well as it will not allow for large scale farming as proposed. I will therefore next week discuss measures which can be adopted to facilitate the acquisition of land suitable and dedicated solely for agricultural purposes and how government will be able to recoup its investment and prevent the loss which is at the moment the order of the day owing to direct disbursement of money to farmers. To be continued.