The Minister of Agri
culture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, recently raised an alarm that Nigerians risk starvation by 2050 if nothing is done to introduce an all-year-round farming. This call underscores the urgent need to improve on our farming method to achieve increased productivity.
In the first place, do we have to wait for the Honourable Minister’s admonition before we realise that the current mode of farming in the country is archaic or outdated and is incapable of sustaining our soaring population and ensuring food security in the near future? That is the issue.
That is why we must heed Chief Ogbeh’s call. All stakeholders in the agricultural sector must work very hard to improve mechanised farming and irrigation. This will ensure that farming, contrary to the way it is done currently, can become an all-year affair.
The Minister’s warning is important and must not be taken lightly. It is imperative that we change our low mentality on farming and introduce technology-driven agriculture that is the practice globally. This nation must invest massively on irrigation activities so that our output is not determined by the vagaries of the seasons.
Ogbeh’s clarion call highlights some of the things Nigeria needs to avoid a food crisis. But the responsibility to ensure that his prediction does not happen rests squarely with his ministry on one hand, and the other tiers of government on the other hand.
Therefore, a framework for the promotion of a mechanised agriculture and a profitable marketing strategy of farm products are needed urgently. Also, farmers have to be educated on good and healthy farming practices like shifting cultivation and irrigation. Of course, if the goal of commercial and mechanised farming is to be achieved, improved funding of the sector cannot be left out.
If we must be successful in our drive towards mechanised farming, the nation must return to the template with which we recorded huge successes in agriculture in the time of the regional administrations. At that time, the Western Region, known for the production of cocoa, attained huge successes. The Eastern and Northern Regions produced coal/palm oil and groundnuts respectively as their major revenue earners and were very successful in them.
Those agricultural products sustained the economy of the nation as well as the respective regions. A return to this template and massive investments in the sector will transform Nigeria into a food basket and a major exporter of agricultural products.
I am particularly sad that despite our great potentialities to grow food massively enough to take care of our needs and our greed, the prices of virtually every food item is on the rise. Shouldn’t we take advantage of the brazen fall of crude oil price in the international market to invest in agriculture and boost our economic fortunes?
We must not allow the hardship of the times to shift our focus from food production. If anything, it should motivate us to take agriculture seriously and make it a major revenue earner for the country. It is important we do all that is required to boost agricultural production.
It is time we viewed agriculture as a serious business. Therefore, individuals and all relevant government agencies have to support farming projects while banks and other financial institutions are made to assist with the availability of necessary credit facilities.
It is also necessary for research institutions, universities and other tertiary institutions to step up research that can aid food production. For this business to thrive, it must be put on genuine scientific or technological basis. Fortunately for us, Chief Ogbeh, who raised the alarm on the impending food crisis, is no stranger to farming. That is why he has to do everything to avert the starvation he warned the nation about.
In a country where agriculture is at best paid lip service, the Agriculture Minister must develop long and short term strategies to prevent the predicted food shortages. I would want him to lead Nigeria away from the current subsistent farming to big time all-year-round farming. Let him also do whatever is required to link agriculture to the industries so that value can be added to the products.
If these actions and many more are taken by the authorities, in the not very distant future we may hope for a better state of things in that sector.
We must act timely.

Arnold Alalibo