Photo credit: News Hamster
I have a farmland somewhere in the southwest. We used to cultivate the land there and rear some birds in the not too distant past. However, for reasons that will be explained on another occasion, we no longer work there, at least, for now. Call me an absentee farmer if you like.
In my active days as a farmer, I observed that there was hardly any young man living or working around my farmland who was an indigene of the place. Rather, I only found the aged and foreign itinerant farmers there. I don’t believe that is good enough for the security of our rural areas.
That is a general trend in our rural areas. More often than not, the youth always go to the cities in search of the proverbial ‘golden fleece’. They believe once they are educated, the villages do not have any space for them again. Their parents actually encourage them to go into the cities so that they can be liberated from poverty.
The villages may not be interesting for the educated. There is no semblance of modern life in most villages. To cap it all, there is hardly any commercial activity going on there.
However, the cities themselves do not have much to offer. Even at the best of times, the employers in the cities could take only a small fraction of applicants. And, my O’ Level Economics taught me that ‘the higher the supply, the lower the price’. In other words, since school leavers are too many, they are paid peanuts. Really, the hard times are here.
So many factories are closing down. Some of them are relocating to other countries due to unfavourable factors in Nigeria. To make things worse, crude oil does not really sell well again. It is no longer the ‘black gold’ that it used to be. That has a serious consequence for the value of the naira and therefore the exchange rate.
The youth are now frustrated. They have been to school and are qualified in various fields of human endeavour. However, they can’t use their certificates to work. In fact, several of them even believe that tissue paper is better than a certificate that can’t secure employment for its owner. Many young people are under-employed. Half bread, they say, is better than none. However, when that half bread becomes permanent, the worker becomes disoriented.
Some of the youth are now being lured into crime, prostitution and drug peddling. Armies of the youth mill about the city centres doing nothing. This is dangerous. An old adage says the devil finds work for the idle.
However, farm estates could be established by the federal government, state governments, local governments, religious bodies and private investors. This is to divert the attention of the youth from the cities to the rural areas.
The youth should be given short training in agriculture. They could spend three months doing the training. For the period of their training and for a reasonable period after the training, they should be given a pittance by the government to enable them keep body and soul together..
The farm estates should have at least a three-bedroom apartment for each farmer. The idea is to make them settle down. Each estate must have power supply. Of course, there should be water supply.
Each estate should have a club house. Those who want to watch European soccer should be able to do so through satellite connections. Those who are interested in clubbing should also have that opportunity.
There should also be internet facilities. That is the positive craze of this age. In any case, they could be selling their produce through the internet. They could also get more business information through the same way.
The religious interests of farmers should also be taken care of. Places of worship should be established in the estates.
The farmers should be made to know the usefulness of cooperative societies. Agricultural inputs should be provided on credit. The cooperative societies will be useful in this aspect. Whoever is providing whatever will not deal with farmers individually. It is much easier and safer to deal with groups than individuals. Tractors should be made available on each estate.
Dry season farming should also be encouraged so that farmers will be busy throughout the year. It is disgraceful that we are still depending on nature for our agriculture. This is more so where arable farming is concerned.
The current season is a case in point. The rains have failed in the southwest. That is why you can hardly find anybody eating maize these days. The simple reason is that you can’t sell what is not there.
A more serious effect of the rain failure will be apparent when poultry farmers need maize for their birds presently. The maize produced in the southwest, even at the best of times, is not enough for local use. The farmers then had to import from the north. But now, the farmers might be forced to import their maize from other countries. The implication of that on the price of poultry products is better imagined than experienced.
Government should let individual farmers market their farm produce. However, if there is a glut, government should do the needful in order to encourage the farmers. Insurance companies should be encouraged to insure the farmers and their produce.
Health centres and schools should be provided on the farm estates. The only thing a person should need is just a bag containing spare clothes and toiletries. Every other thing is already provided.
Values should be added to whatever is being produced. For instance, if a tomato puree factory is established close to a tomato plantation, the firm would not need to look far for its raw materials. The farmers too will be saved from spoilage and other post-harvest challenges. In a similar vein, processing industries could be cited near poultries so that birds could be prepared and their meat refrigerated in preparation for the market. From experience, I know that once farmers know they have a point of sale for their produce at good rates, they will be encouraged to produce more.
When this is done, the youth would not need to be persuaded to stay in the rural areas. They will see it as a much better alternative.
Government on its part will benefit the most. In the first instance, it would have diverted the energy that could have been used for negative purposes to creative ventures. Second, it would have succeeded in providing more food into the market. Third, it would have saved the rural areas from infestation by foreigners.
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