Abigail ErhiagbojeAgricultural entrepreneur and CEO of Sargasso Africa Limited, Reginald Ekeanyanwu has called on the Nigerian government to invest in mechanized and industrialized farming in other to curb the rising cost of food which is raising great concern across the country.
Ekeanyanwu stated this in an interview with Arise TV’s ‘Morning Show’ on Tuesday, 17th of October, 2023.
The world marked World Food Day on Monday, 16th October, to reflect on the importance of food, with the theme ‘Water is life, water is food. Leave no one behind’.
According to Ekeanyanwu, Agriculture had always been the basis of the Nigerian economy in the past, whereby people could feed themselves and even produce enough for sale to other African countries. One of such was the groundnut pyramid in the North back then. As a result of this farming, Nigerians could afford to feed themselves, but presently, they have abandoned Agriculture, as we only have individual farmers, who produce on a subsistence basis for themselves and are barely able to afford modern Agricultural equipment for large-scale production.
He emphasised the need for the country to outgrow the use of traditional and outdated tools (back-breaking Agriculture) in Agriculture because it is one of the major reasons why many youths have abandoned Agriculture in rural areas and migrated to urban centres for better opportunities.
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He noted that in the last 3-4 years things have changed in the sense that Nigerians have started realizing that the way to having a better agricultural sector is by focusing on creating clusters in farming cooperatives as it makes it easier for the provision of Agricultural implements.
He further disclosed that the government of the former president, Buhari, had invested a lot in farming but it wasn’t fruitful because farmers were not well informed on the plans for Agriculture. According to him, the farmers are the most important factor in the national existence because they have continuously made it possible for poverty and hunger to be alleviated to some extent in the country. The way forward as he stated, is the government coming up with plans on how to produce what the country needs.
“Now, the government is talking about investment in Agriculture. I think that we shouldn’t be looking at Agriculture based on what we have already been doing. We should be opening new frontiers. Part of the things we should be looking at from our consultations with farmers across the nation is that we need to clear new farmlands. We need to do industrialized and mechanized Agriculture. We need to bring tractors…It is high time for us to be able to get involved in Agriculture in a mechanized sense. In the way it is with the developed world, if not so, there’s no way we can compete”.
On President Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Agriculture in the country, the expert advised that the first thing to be done is aggregate the farmers and create investment portfolios on their behalf which could attract investments from both the private sector and public sector and at the same time be able to direct the funds that federal government will be providing for the purpose.
Secondly, he stressed the need for Nigerians to also contribute towards getting standard Agricultural implements for Agriculture in the country in which he disclosed that a franchise was launched to have the general public fund the cause.
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One of the problems he identified as affecting Nigerian Agriculture is moving raw materials from farms to places where they are needed. The solution to this according to him was an ongoing project, “Rural Industrialization Urbanization Plan”, whereby the movement of raw resources is shortened with processing plants moved to the rural areas for quick processing and reduce losses.
“The amount of food we lose a day, in every year, is more than what we can even imagine, it can turn around our economic profile. It can affect the naira in many ways. So, if we are going to achieve food security, first of all, we are going to have to provide Agricultural implements to these farmers and we are saying that it is possible to partner with the government and also the public space, so that individuals can afford to partner with these farmers.”
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