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Chinyere Anyanwu
The government, both federal and states, have been urged to boost agriculture by providing necessary infrastructure to aid the operation of farmers across the country.
The President of Gemstone Nation Builders Foundation and leadership expert, Olufela Durotoye, made the call at the weekend during the Lagos Farmers Convention 2020 held in Ejinrin, Epe, Lagos.
The convention with the theme, “Building Profitable Agrobusinesses for Economic Growth and Job Creation”, was aimed at connecting, empowering and equipping agribusiness practitioners in Lagos and across the country through knowledge sharing, technical support, networking, fostering the use of technology and business relationships to build sustainable agribusiness.
Durotoye said, “it is impossible for us to truly encourage farmers if we do not create the infrastructure that will enable them to evacuate their produce from their farmlands to the market.”
He emphasised the importance of good roads, rails, and power, among other amenities, critical in agricultural production value chains. He noted that, “when government begins to collaborate with farmers, the nation will be fed and we will export food. Government has to be there not to prevent anybody but to ask, ‘how can I help you.’ The moment government asks, ‘how can I help you’, the farmers will thrive.”
The motivational speaker as well tasked farmers on the use of technology to enhance productivity, urging them not to “use people to take care of the farm, but to build the people to take care of the farm.”
In his welcome address, the state Commissioner for Agriculture, Prince Gbolahan Lawal, represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Olayiwole Onasanya, lauded organisers of the programme for bringing stakeholders in agriculture under one roof to parley on challenges confronting the sector and the way forward.
Lawal stated that, “the need for us to constantly engage and learn from each other cannot be overemphasised. The current reality and exigencies of job creation for the teeming youth population and attainment of food security require that a more aggressive, strategic and efficient approach be employed in the training and empowerment of women and youths.”
The Agric Commissioner who pledged the state’s commitment to opening new frontiers in agriculture, said the ministry “will partner with existing farms and agribusiness with a linkage to sources of finance, market visibility, youth empowerment and establishment of additional enterprise-specific farm estates across the state like Varden Agro City.”
Earlier in his remark, the Convention Cordinator, Lanre Howells, expressed concern over the activities of those who know little or nothing about agriculture being put in positions where they determine what happens in a sector that is an unfamiliar terrain to them.
He said, “every time people talk about agriculture, they sit in the confines of their posh offices and conference rooms in hotels with nice posh suits and their babarigas and they talk about agriculture not even knowing what it is about. It is very painful that we are at a place where we talk about agriculture being the new oil but we are not really dealing with the real issues.”
He assured that the convention was an initiative geared towards changing the narrative.
