Tasks govt on post-COVID-19 massive agric support, devt

By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

The Nigeria Farmers Group and Cooperative Society, NFGCS, weekend, disclosed of supporting 11 communities in Kokuna Local Government of Nasarawa State, with over 100 bags of rice and five cows to cushion the effect of the novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic.

This was made known by the National Coordinator, NFGCS, Mr. Retson Tedheke, while in a telephone interview with Vanguard over the negative trend of the nation’s economy has been placed on the hills of all-time low in crude oil practices in the international market and the way forward to salvage the economy from total collapse as raging COVID-19 pandemic continue to pound the economy.

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Tedheke called on the government to urgently come up with quick-fix measures that would jump-start the agricultural sector to mitigate the negative trend of international crude oil prices on the nation’s economy.

According to him, what COVID-19 has done is to prove what most of them in the sector have been saying for the last 10 years that the most important resources for growth and development of every nation are agriculture and medicine.

He further stated that Nigeria has failed to maximally utilize her over 84 million hectares of arable farmland, which today has placed many citizens under serious hunger as leaders failed to do the very industrial things.

He said: “What COVID-19 has done is to prove what many of us have been saying for the last 10 years that the most important resources for the growth and development of every nation are agriculture and medicine.

“Over the last two months or three months, one of the things we have realized is nations that place value on local productivity as regards agriculture has been easier for them to sustain their population and production process via agriculture while other nations struggle.

“Nigeria is a more pathetic case because there over 84 million hectares of arable farmland and so many of us are hungry because we failed to do the very industrial things easily.

“What we are planning to do as a farm is to make sure that we are able to produce enough food to at least take care of the communities around us. We have shared 30 bags of rice to 11 communities around the farm, over the last two months we have shared about five cows and more than a hundred bags of rice to all our farmers here.

“While we do that is because if you are able to provide basic food for your people you have solved 90 per cent of their problem. Rural Nigeria does not require much from politicians.”

He also added that “We just need a basic lateral road, water, and light, and all of these I have listed, road the cooperative has provided, light we are at the verge of getting light to the communities around us; water, we have boreholes, in fact, the Fulanis come to fetch water, we gave them a tap flowing with water 24/7.

“Once you are able to provide these basic amenities as a farm you make the community believe the project as part of their own. I can sleep in the farm like I always do and I am not afraid whereas you that is sleeping in Abuja you will be afraid that armed robbers will come to your house because the power and ability to make Nigeria work is in our hands as the elite as able to provide for those who are in need.”

However, the NFGCS boss tasked the government on sustaining the economy via agricultural development in the midst of COVID-19, hence massive investment is needed now to achieve it.

“Government must invest in agriculture because if Nigerians eat well they can never be sick. If we are not able to feed our people we cannot stand and say we are growing as a country. COVID-19 practically opened up the inefficiencies of our politicians for us to see that a nation that is not productive with regards to agriculture will continue to struggle.

“A nation that cannot take care of her basic interest will continue to struggle. Do we need to be like America, Germany, France, and other western nations to develop as regards agriculture? No!

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“We have to go back to agriculture that is the solution. Every government should go back and look at their land and ask themselves what can I cultivate and harvest in three to four months? The government should begin to build warehouses, processing plants, support farmers in such a way that in three months we have an abundance of food across the country.

“I always say we are all ‘Chinese’ why because as a farm we have come to realize that the Chinese understand the concept of micro-technology. The China man will produce a destoning machine, parboiling machine, milling machine if is what you need, and the technology from China is so simplified that my head of fabrication unit can actually decouple the machine to parboil rice and begin to produce it himself.

“So China understands micro-technology because China produces everything and anything. A nation can only survive when everything and anything can be produced.

“As a farmer what do I need? I want my farm to be sustainable, equipment and my workers come to work. For my workers to be at the farm I need basic tools that a human being needs to survive, face masks, sanitizer, Personal Protective Equipment, PPE, machines, and others”, he said.

vanguard