AGRICULTURE AND THE REST OF US; WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS…by Olarewaju Olaniyi Precious

Nigeria is a country whose present population stands at about 158million people with vast expanse of fertile lands has find it very difficult to make an headline in food production. Agriculture which remains the only way of producing food for human consumption has been totally relegated to the backdoor in a nation where there is a gross preference for white collar jobs.  This has begun to raise questions on what the future holds for our dear country in terms of feeding our massive population. Reports have shown that the present average age of farmers in the country falls between 55 to 60 years of age, the report further projected that unless something is urgently done to encourage young people into farming, the average age of farmers will be 75 to 80 years by 2030 and our population by then will be over 250 million people.

As a nation, we are very blessed; our vegetation cuts across six vegetation belts which support the cultivation and rearing of all tropical plants and livestocks. These put us in an advantageous position over a lot of countries when it comes to food production, our environment is one of the most friendly in the world as we are less prone to natural disasters and outbreak of pests and diseases. Also, our massive population is a big plus as it gives us a ready-made human labour and man-power.

Unfortunately, we have been unable to harness all these advantages toward massive food production.
It has been reported that our population will hit over 250 million people by 2030; it shows that there is an urgent need to find solutions to the eradication of potential food insecurity and poverty with various dynamic and strategic policies and programmes etc to bring about sustainable social and economic development. The only way of achieving this is that everybody must realise the need to make an input and government must realises the need to sincerely encourage young Nigerians into farming to take over from the ageing hands.

Attentions must be shifted from oil as the sole driver of our economy; we must look in retrospect to the old era before the discovery of oil when the agricultural sector was the major driving force of our economy and when we were the leading country in the production of most of the tropical crops. We must take advantage of our huge population to ensure food self-sustenance; unless realistic and holistic steps are taken towards ensuring food security, hunger will be our biggest threat by 2030.

This therefore calls for an urgent need to raise our production level from the present subsistence type of farming to large scale farming and the creation of enabling environments for young people coming into farming, government at all levels must sensitise the people on the immense potentials and profitability of the agricultural sector as this will help entice a lot of investors in coming into the sector. Government must also ensure they make available latest agricultural machineries, improved breeds/varieties of seedlings with high yields and early maturity.

More funds must be committed by governments at all level into agricultural researches to ensure a tab is kept on the rapid global changes particularly on the effect of climatic changes on our indigenous breeds/species for improved performances and yields, research remains a key component to our agricultural development especially when we compare the low productivity and yield of our indigenous breeds/species to their exotic counterparts.

Government must also review the land tenure and ownership system to make it favourable for agriculture knowing well that large scale crop production requires very large expanses of lands, government must make available lands for the establishment of agricultural settlements with basic amenities which will guarantee quality living for farmers. It should be noted that agriculture must be made beautiful as this will help ameliorate the old-long impression that farming is only for the poor villagers and rural community dwellers.

 Governments at all level need to understand that the responsibility of revitalising our agricultural sector lies majorly in their hands, they must realise if they put proper incentives in place, enlighten the populace on the prospects of agriculture and formulate favourable policies on agriculture; naturally, a lot of people particularly the young ones who are busy roaming the streets in search of white collar jobs will warmly embrace farming and see a need in helping to kick hunger out of our nation.

In conclusion, we must all realise that the herculean task of ensuring food security and sustenance cannot and must not be left for government alone; we must all make inputs to making our agricultural sector work. The relative few at the helms of affairs and their families will always have excess food on their tables for consumption; it is we that constitute the masses that will bear the brunt of food insecurity and hunger. We must all ensure we contribute our quota to improve on food production and maximize the massive potentials agriculture affords us.

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