Nigeria is making frantic efforts to ensure that agriculture and allied services play a key role in its quest for economic and revenue diversification.
This stems from the humongous negative impact of drop in oil prices on the economy, which includes recession and unemployment.
To support the current diversification drive and mitigate the impact of oil price, Osun state, located in the South West Nigeria, has demonstrated commitment to developing the country’s agricultural sector in such a way that the private sector earns modest return on investment while the government generates revenue and meet with the ever-growing demand of food.
Against this backdrop, Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State, took this to those who know better when it comes to agriculture, when he recently led a high level delegation to the State of Saxon Anhalt Germany, in furtherance of the established cooperation in the area of agricultural development and in support of the Osun Rural Enterprise and Agriculture Programme (O-REAP).
One of the key highlights of the visit is the planned cooperation between the government of Osun and Saxon Anhalt in setting up of ‘Best Practices Demonstration, Training and Production Farm’ in the state.
The farm is to target the youth and other farmers as well as provide the platform for acquisition of knowledge, skills and techniques in modern agricultural practice with a focus on land development and management, new technologies in crops, livestock, fisheries, post-harvest handling, processing and packaging.
In view of establishing various centre of trainings and commercial farms in the state, the government of Osun established a Land Bank in the state where those who have fallow land can entrust it with the government. The government reach agreement with the various land owners on the terms and duration of usage.
This is one of the strategies by the Aregbesola administration to make farming in the state ease for whoever wants to practise agriculture.
Expectedly as well, the establishment of the ‘Best Practice Demonstration, Training and Production Farm’ in the state will help create an even more cost-effective and sustainable model of cooperation that will boost agricultural productivity in the state.
Furthermore, it is expected that the ‘Best Practice Demonstration, Training and Production Farm’ will equally serve as a veritable platform to anchor a well-designed farmer exchange programme that will provide the opportunity for German agricultural experts and farmers to provide technological transfer and capacity building to farmers in the state.
The latest collaborative efforts of the state government will involve building on the initial outcomes of the cooperation with the state of Saxon Anhalt under which 40 budding young farmers from Osun had been hosted in Germany for advanced practical training in different aspects of agriculture over the past four years.
This training no doubt resulted in greater opportunities for the young farmers in the state as they launched promising careers in modern and productive agriculture practices such as piggerry, fishery and animal feed production.
They are also involved in different aspects of agriculture including cattle and small ruminants’ production, horticulture and greenhouse farming in different parts of the state.
Other highlights of the trip included planning meetings with the top officials of the Ministry of Agriculture of the state of Saxon Anhalt and members of the Saxon-Anhalt parliament. The meeting was hinged on consolidating as well as expanding on the current cooperation between Osun and Saxon Anhalt.
Considering the successes recorded from the cooperation with that of Saxon Anhalt in the last four years in the area of agriculture, the cooperation is now being expanded to the area of healthcare delivery.
To make the state self-sufficient in food production, over 17, 000 farmers in the state had benefitted from the QUIIP I and II loan programmes.
Under the Osun State Agricultural Development Corporation (OSSADEC) in 2010 this government had also given out 250million Naira loan to farmers and N500 million in 2012.
For Rural Accessibility Mobility Programme (RAMP), the state constructed 662km rural roads for easy access to farm settlements while out of 300km World Bank. This is to make mobility easy between rural and urban movement as well facilitate smooth and fluid movement of farm produce from the farms to the final markets.
These various initiatives, collaboration and cooperation were and are embarked upon in order so that agriculture is developed to the modern international standards in the state.
And for the governor, the tomorrow of millions of children must not be jeopardised at the risk of famine and nutrition which stares Nigerians in the face.
The only guarantee we have as a state in particular and the nation in general out of the current economic crisis, according to Aregbesola, is to all go to farm.
