Farmers in the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have identified opportunities in the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s agenda for agriculture when elected in 2023.
The farmers said there are several investment opportunities in cassava and maize value chain as proposed by Tinubu.
The farmers under the auspices of Asiwaju Farmers Forum at a press conference in Abuja yesterday said their resolve to tap from the opportunities in staples like cassava and maize followed Tinubu‘s last week assurance to invest massively in the entire agriculture value chain if elected president next year.
The leader of the group and national coordinator of the Nigerian Farmers Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS) Mr Retson Tedheke, said there must be a different approach to tackle the economic challenge for Nigeria to work.
Retson said, “Something easy, simply but ultra-nationalistic must be done. Let us reason. Our population is mostly not employable except in the art of farming. When a population is as uneducated as we are, we look for the low hanging fruits to get us rolling and working in large numbers even with machines. Our people, particularly in rural Nigeria, need to be engaged in large numbers before they engage us violently with devastating consequences.”
Retson added that “Our imports must be on how to add value to what we can produce locally, it must be on extra jobs, it must be focused on nothing but managing the evolving rural Nigeria quagmire and turning what is currently becoming a curse to blessing.
“The problem of Nigeria is Nigerians. Our failure as a country is our fault as a people. The USD is not coming down soon. Our hunger is not going away. We cannot import everything and expect our people to be free from the challenging economic mess we currently face.
„There are no immediate solutions outside Agbado and Cassava. No place will be safe if we continue to play with a hungry and angry uneducated population. Lagos is working even if slowly and steadily. Nigeria will work.
„Holland makes about $5 billion annually from exporting flowers and $100 billion annually from agriculture and agribusiness. Those who ridicule agriculture as the only foundation for national development are naive and ignorant about real national economic growth.”
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