Says farmers can’t wait for rainfall to produce food

Calls for storage of rain water to feed livestock

By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

The All Farmers Association of Nigeria, AFAN, Monday, called on the private sector to venture into water supply business to enable farmers embark on all year-round-farming to boost food production.

Speaking with Vanguard, the National President, AFAN, Arc Kabir Ibrahim, said farmers cannot be waiting for rainfalls to grow food following the population growth of the country, hence the need to have access to water constantly to produce and export food.

Ibrahim also pointed at countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia and others whose rainfall comes rarely, have to depend on groundwater supply and importation of water to grow their food and export as well.

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He said Nigeria should emulate same if there will be continuous production of food to feed over 200 mullion mouths.

He also urged livestock farmers to store rainwater to feed their livestock including large ruminants like cattle, and those in the poultry industry should do same to avoid water shortage in their farms, especially in the dry season.

Speaking on the predictions on 2022 rainfall by the Nigeria Meteorological Agency, NiMET, he said the information would be cascaded to from the national executive of the Association to those at the state, local government and ward levels for proper understanding and preparation for the 2022 dry season farming.

He also acknowledged the inputs currently being distributed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development but said farmers should not wholly depend and wait on government for farm inputs, but appealed to government to subsidize farm inputs for farmers to afford them for their business.

He said: “From the national when this information goes to our executives, they will cascade to all the nooks and crannies of this country. We consider this information as very cardinal to production and productivity.

“So it is nice to see it everywhere. If you have seed and you don’t plant it very well, and there is no water it will not germinate. So, the idea of rain-fed agriculture also is becoming old fashioned.

“In fact, all those countries of the world that are food secured are going to do agriculture, and even use groundwater. So must do that in Nigeria, we must do that. Some people even use groundwater to do farming. So we should do that if it seems the way to go.”

On the issue of insecurity affecting farmers, the AFAN boss said, “But security in Nigeria is everybody’s problem.

“We should be able to report even our children if we know that they perpetrate insecurity, the governance should do a lot more, incentivize the armed forces who are stationed in their various places to do this job.”  

It will be recalled, last week Tuesday, the Nigeria Meteorological Agency, NiMet, predicted early rainfall in April and May this year in Central states and within June to July in the Northern states.

This is even as the agency advised farmers to commence planting crops from February 28 in the coastal states further predicting that the dry spell could set in from May to August with different levels of severity.

Vanguard News Nigeria