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From Charity Nwakaudu, Abuja
An agronomist and chairman of T&T CALGROUP Business Solutions, USA, Dr. Thaddaeus Thompson has stated that NIgeria must focus on the education and enlightenment of small scale farmers before its agricultural sector can be enviable.
Thompson made this known through a telephone interview with some journalists on issues surrounding small scale farming and its development.
He stressed that the issues concerning small scale farming must be addressed for Nigeria wanted recognition on global agricultural scale to be achieved.
The agricultural expert who is also the chairman of Safewater Energy and Environmental Restoration, Ltd. SWEERGLOBAL.COM and FARMS stated that farmers in the country can be extremely productive if risk management was applied to checkmate some of the factors and challenges facing the sector.
He said,” risk factors is meeting the small farmers and understanding why they have not improved. Some of the things we have found out in research conducted is that we need to educate the local farmers and bring them out of fear. A friend of mine into agricultural insurance said government had released 2 billion Dollars farmers loan, but they realized that most of the farmers did not show up for the loan and the reasons are so unclear to him.
“I let them know that there should be enterprise diversification which assumes the income from different crops and livestock activities we have to make sure that it moves up and down in perfect collation which means that low income from some activities can be offset by high incomes it is complimentary, these are some of the things farmers must be educated on this or the potentials of the Nigerian farmers is been impeded.”
He further stated that farmers should be given financial leverage “which refers to the use of borrowed funds again these they do not go for these because they are afraid of the risk involved hence they need consultation to address the issues if they want to expand. If they want expansion they have to go for bigger loans which is not meant to produce the same quantity they are used to producing, this must be communicated to them.”
He explained that other discovery made was that there was a vertical integration problem being in agricultural sector, and this increases the risk associated with quantity and quality of inputs, because “these forms ownership controlled by the commodity of two or more faces of production and marketing which means when the farmers do not control the supply chain, all he does is to bring his produce to the cooperative then there is a problem.
“The risk becomes very high for them but if they are allowed in to certain areas of the supply chain that is how the cooperative sells, how the market moves, all this training is been given to them, it gives the farmers hope and reassurance that if they take investments and invest in their farms, they will make profits as expected.”
He advised the Nigerian government to minimize the risk in loans by educating farmers on borrowing process adding that if they are better informed, their perceptions would be better.
He further explained that through modern farm management technology, the details of the quantities or whatever flaws are encountered in the sector can be gotten.
The Bayelsa State born also stated that farming should be made attractive for younger generation “we have to bring technology into farming because we have noticed that the younger generation have not put in their interest into the sector.”
