The Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture, FUNAAB, Abeokuta, Professor Kolawole Salako has renewed the call on governments at all levels to pay urgent attention to agriculture in view of the dwindling in the prices of oil at the global market.
Professor Salako made the call while handing over some agricultural products of the institution to the Ogun State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, in Abeokuta.
The Vice-Chancellor noted that an agriculture-based economy will assist in solving the problems of high unemployment, rising inflation, wide income inequality, high poverty level and the high level of insecurity facing the nation.
Professor Salako warned that for a country like Nigeria that had over the years relied almost entirely on oil to fund its economy, the implications of the sharp fall in the price of crude oil occasioned by the effects of Coronavirus are dire.
He said the current government needed to aggressively focus on food production and adopt the farming settlements of the 1950s.
The don who noted that the institution had commenced intensive production of cassava, rice and livestock in readiness for the post-Covid-19 situation said the revival of the farm settlements across the country was important at this period of time.
Professor Salako said the distribution of the food items to journalists in the state was part of the efforts of the institution to cushion the effect of the global pandemic on members of the pen profession.
Similarly, the Iyalode of Yorubaland, Mrs. Alaba Lawson also donated nose masks to Union.
Mrs Lawson said nose masks was part of her efforts to support the vulnerable and the media practitioners who may be exposed to danger while discharging their duty.
Receiving the items, the NUJ caretaker chairman, Mrs. Omolola Adeyinka thanked the donors for their gesture and implored other well-meaning individuals to emulate FUNAAB and Iyalode Lawson in reaching out to journalists.
Olusegun Folarin
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