Make Agriculture attractive like other professions

By Lanre Omotoso

Agenda setting is one of the concerns of everyone for a new government, farmers are not left out as they wish that the incoming government heed their demands.

Radio Nigeria Correspondent who interacted with stakeholders to know how agriculture and its value chains can be exploited to create employment opportunities, files in this report.

Upon the discovery of oil in commercial quantity, agriculture which used to be the mainstay of the country’s economy has been relegated to the background.

However, as the mono-economy can no longer sustain the country’s demand for growth, there is a need to aggressively place agriculture in its rightful position.

Speaking with Radio Nigeria in Ado-Ekiti, a former lecturer in the Department of Soil Resources and Environmental Management, Ekiti State University, Professor Olufemi Ayodele said agriculture would take its rightful position if agricultural loans get to the real farmers at single-digit interest.

On how to make agriculture and its value chains a source of employment for youths, Professor Ayodele called for proper deployment of agricultural machinery as well as making it an attractive profession like law, medicine and engineering.

The Professor of soil science noted that much research to curb drudgery in agriculture, which is wasted on the shelf in higher institutions across the country, needed to be worked upon and integrated into society.

Another impediment to food sufficiency is kidnapping, which needed to be tackled, according to a farmer, Mr. Mathew Ojo who gained freedom after spending some days at the kidnapper’s den.

Mr. Ojo noted that the trauma had caused him to abandon his farm produce to rotten, while his labourers who depend on him have been thrown out of business.

Similarly, a medical practitioner turned farmer, Dr. Bolaji Kowe attributed deplorable roads and scarcity of manpower as other challenges facing agriculture.

Dr. Kowe said if the incoming government, corporate bodies, and religious bodies could harness every aspect of agriculture and its value chains, it would eradicate social vices, reduce hunger, limit rural-urban migration as well serve as a source of revenue.

The respondents who described the favourable weather in Nigeria as a blessing that must be appreciated and utilised, called on the government at various levels to provide agricultural machinery and agro-chemical at a subsidised rate, provide storage facilities and processing industries to enhance all-year-round farming.l and curb wastages of agricultural produce.

They also maintained that proper exploitation of various agricultural sectors such as fishery, poultry, animal husbandry, and cropping would not only save the country from borrowing but also widen the opportunities to engage in agri- business and reduce unemployment, especially among youths.

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