By Simon Ebegbulem
BENIN—THE Edo State Government has appealed to the European Union and America to boost agriculture in Nigeria by giving massive grants to farmers.

The government stressed that agricultural production in Nigeria was the major means by which the economy of the nation could be revamped, pointing out that “if they actually want to help the nation they must look towards investing directly on farmers.”

The state Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Dr Tunde Lakoju,  who spoke during a training course on domestication of high value trees, organized by the Internaitonal Center for Research and Agro-Forestry, ICRAF, in collaboration with the state government, accused developed countries of Europe and America of “systematically discouraging” grants to the sector whereas they do just that to encourage farmers and make food accessible to their people.

Lamenting that agriculture in Nigeria had been abandoned due to lack of modern facilities, Lakoju asserted that “there is a lot of hypocrisy in the entire system. If you go to the western world, agriculture is heavily subsidized.

Farmers are about the most comfortable and wealthiest but the samepeople have systematically attempted to discourage third world countries from subsidizing agriculture.

Should we be talking about loans or grants? If we must pull our people out of the poverty line, then we must talk more of giving huge grants and not loans to farmers.”

Lakoju lamented that the N1 billion loan for each state for the agriculture sector may not make any impact considering that Edo State has over 200,000 farmers that are to benefit on over 1.5 million hectres of land available.He called on donor agencies to explore the possibilities of including universities and colleges of agriculture in the state in their projects so that younger agriculturists would better appreciate their efforts.

The training programme is being financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, and the Common Fund for Commodities, CFC.