By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

An Agricultural expert, Tunde Ojei, Thursday, called for agricultural intervention for survivors of insurgency in the North East region.

Ojei made the call while speaking in a chat with Vanguard making life meaningful again for victims of the conflict that has ravaged the North East region of the country for about a decade and what can be done to bring them out from poverty and dependency, which is basically through agricultural engagement that would help them eke out a living for themselves.

READ ALSOYoung entrepreneur advises state govts to take agricultural sector serious

He maintained that the way to add value in the lives of these people is to make farm inputs available and accessible for them.

He said: “Agriculture is one of the ways you can easily take people out of poverty and until we are able to address issues around inputs for farmers, especially small scale farmers.

“Look at people who have found themselves in this conflict they cannot even afford a loan, buy farm input, so we need to start looking on how to strengthen agriculture as a way of helping people in this situation to bounce back.”

However, he acknowledged that with the situation currently, access to land for agricultural operations is difficult, but can be looked into.

READ ALSO: 2020 Budget: Curious, strange budgetary allocations under Ministries of Agric, Water Resources and Mines

“In a conflict situation land as an agric becomes very difficult as well. So we need to look at all of these and how we can use that as a platform to bring people out of poverty and even build peace”, he added.

The conflict in the region has forced farmers, herders and fishermen to flee from their communities, which has made agriculture to become a major casualty of the violence, which has devastated agricultural activities the region prides itself, but now the narrative has been tales of woes.

Vanguard