THE conference of the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) opened Thursday in Portharcourt, Rivers state. This year’s conference has as its theme, ‘Economic diversification: Agriculture as option for a prosperous Nigeria’. Also, one of the topics for discussion during the business session in which I participated was, ‘Agriculture as panacea for unemployment’. The theme is quite apt considering the dire strait that the country has found itself.
Presently, the Nigerian nation is battling with dwindling income from oil which has been the mainstay of our economy. The attention is now on diversifying the economy into other income-yielding areas. Naturally, the focus is now agriculture. From the federal to the states levels including organisations and groups, everybody is talking agriculture. It is the easiest and simplest way to generate income especially for a country like Nigeria with its vast arable land. The questions then are; how sustainable would this drive be? Like someone said in an aside during one of the sessions, ‘Nigeria is focusing on agriculture because of the problem with oil revenue, once there is a rise in the price of oil, all these would be forgotten’. Before he finished the statement, someone quipped, ‘may there never be a solution to the price of oil soon’.
If Nigeria is desirous of going through this path, what are the efforts being put in place to sustain the movement of going back to the farm. There is no doubt that Nigeria is sitting on a massive fortune which could come from agriculture. With a total land mass of 91million hectares out of which 82 million hectares is arable or good farming land, what have we done to tap into this? Nothing.
In actual fact, It’s only 42percent of that fertile farmland that is presently utilized, unfortunately, there is little yield because large scale farming is not common. Most of the farmers engage in subsistent farming simply to make ends meet. That’s not all, statistics have shown that out of the total land mass, over 20million hectares are made of forest with great farming potential. This has not been tapped into while a further 18million hectares is regarded as pasture which is equally good for farming, all these vast arable lands lie waste.
At the opening ceremony of the NGE conference, all the speakers, from Governor Nyesom Wike, immediate past governor of Delta state, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, former Ogun State governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba all encouraged journalists and editors to write to promote agriculture and get people to go back to farm.
As much as I agree with the speakers, the task of the journalists becomes difficult when the government does not do its part. How do you persuade the youths which makes up about 50 Percent of the population to go to the farm? How do you ensure that if they stay back to till the land, they would not feel that they are missing something in the city? How can we encourage the young population of the unemployed to stay on the farm instead of migrating to the city looking for the non-existing white collar jobs? How do we bridge the gap between the rural and urban centers in terms of infrastructure such as good water, electricity, good roads and good medical facilities? It is when we take those steps and make it a state policy that it would then become clear that we are serious about agriculture as one of the mainstays of our economy, just the way it used to be in the early 50s before the discovery of oil.
The idea is not rocket science and it had been done before. The Western region did it during the Chief Obafemi Awolowo era with the creation of farm settlements. Each of the settlements has about 25 hectares of land which is divided among the farmers in the settlements, a farm house of about two bedrooms is given to each of the farmers. The settlements also have primary and secondary schools. There is also an agriculture service centre which provides seeds, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. There are also tractors and other modern farming equipments for the farmers. The settlements were fashioned after the Israel’s Kibbutz. Kibbutz started in Israel in 1909 and was traditionally an agricultural community, although this has moved into other ancillary areas of the Israeli economy today. But the idea still remains with Israel having over 270 kibbutzs scattered across the country. The Kibbutz accounts for 9 (Nine) percent of Israel economic out put and 40 percent of agriculture output. The population of Israel is just about 9 million. In Nigeria, our own farm settlements have run down.
This is what the government should focus on. The settlements should be revived. There should be incentives for young people interested in farming to settle on these farms. In settling in such places, they should not have the notion that they are missing anything in the city. All the things that make life interesting and livable in the cities should be replicated in the farm settlements. There should also be role models and attitudinal changes.
There should be good examples for the young farmers to look up to. Farmers that have made success of the venture should serve as encouragement to these aspiring farmers.
According to a 2012 statistics, Nigeria has about 11 million unemployed youths, this figure has risen in the last four years. Thus, to make a success of the diversification into agriculture, these unemployed youth population of age 15-34 years should be targetted and encouraged. But this would not happen with mere rhetorics, it has to be a conscious, sustained and sustainable policy.
But it is doable.
It’s still not too late for Nigeria
