Farms now safe for farmers return, says Africanfarmer

Africanfarmer Mogaji, a food security expert has said farms are once again becoming safe for farmers to return.

In an interview on Arise Television, he remarked that cases of insecurity have eased in a lot of hotspot states, an indication that more farmers can return to their farms.

“Insecurity challenges have reduced significantly. I operate across farms in the country and get fortnight feedback,” he said. “Insecurity has reduced especially under this administration.”

“Farmers are beginning to return to farms. The main challenge however is the fear that has gotten into the farmers and the players,” Mogaji, who is also a farmer, added.

Mogaji expressed optimism about several ongoing interventions by the government including regarding insecurity, which he maintains has significantly eased across many states in the country.

However, he said the death toll and kidnapping incidents that occurred at the peak of the insecurity charade, have affected the psyche of farmers who still fear going to farms.

“The truth is, many farmers know people who died from insecurity and so they are afraid to return to their farms,” he explained.

Read also: FG to establish farmers’ database to facilitate interventions

Also, he urged that the 255 tractors the federal government plans to distribute to farmers, be distributed to states that have shown active agricultural production and interest over the years.

“It is almost all interventions over the years that the federal government implements through states that don’t work,” he said.

“Let the federal government support federal bodies. We have the ministry of agriculture that does not have lands, rather it is the ministry of Water Resources that has lands and river basins,” he explained.

Adding that, “Let the government fund government parastatals. So rather than give the state government these tractors, give them to farmers in rural communities who reside close to river basins with about 30,000 hectares of land.”

Mogaji said that if these active steps were not taken, Nigerians would see a basket of tomatoes surge to about N300,000 in June – when farmers harvest the vegetable.

Last year BusinessDay reported that a big basket of tomatoes rose above 100 percent to an average of N150,000 due to Tuta Absoluta outbreak in Northern Nigeria.

Furthermore, he said that capacity development is a weak link in the agric sector, noting that the government does not expend enough resources on training farmers.

“We are not investing heavily in the education space in agriculture,” he said, noting that there is a need for research institutes to do more in terms of producing quality seeds for farmers that would improve production.

According to him, many federal and state universities need a lot of upgrading. He urged that the government subsidise production rather than output because, “currently in Nigeria, we have a production problem. We are not producing enough.”

Segun Alabi, a farmer and chief executive officer of Davidorlah Farms said the presence of terrible roads from farms to markets routes is a challenge farmers face when transporting food items.

“Majority of our rural roads are not good at all,” he shared. “If you are bringing plantain and maize (food items) from farms before it gets to the city, we will have a lot of post-harvest waste, which is a recurrent occurrence in Nigeria.”

Therefore, he called for good roads that would aid in cutting down Africa’s most populous nation’s N3.5 trillion annual post-harvest loss.