COMMERCIALIZATION CHALLENGING AGRICULTURE

By PsalmuelAdekunle,

Agriculture alone contributes 22% of the Nigeria’s GDP hereby amounting to GDP per capital (GDP divided by total population) of $586.96 and contributes up to $112 billion to the Gross Domestic product.

Agricultural produce- a maize farm

The agricultural sector once contributed up to 70% to the GDP but the trend was dwindled ever since the emergence of petroleum in Nigeria. In recent years, the federal government has made conscious efforts in some aggressive agricultural reformations that assist farmers in getting loans and fertilizers to improve their farming methods.

Rural farmers were taught new methods on how to farm and how to make agro business to aid them In progressing in their agricultural calling yearly.

With the recent cutting of oil prices and austerity measures strategically put in place, the economy may suffer a huge set-back if agricultural doesn’t boom. Oil and gas constituting 15.9% of the economy may dwindle to 10% between the next five years.

Investing in agricultural, is a key factor farmers are happy to be part of but other challenging factors still stand on the way of many farmers and stakeholders in feeding the nation and improving the economy.

Factors like land ownership, credit acquisition, farm hands supply, fertilizers and so many more still affect most farmers in fully maximising their potentials in the agricultural world.

In Lagos state, the urbanisation of rural areas is one of the major set-back that affect farmers in the state as a farming seems inconsistence where farmers gets sent away from leased or borrowed land due to the fact that some companies wishes to construct a ware house or any constructible thing on the land.

According to the Lagos state ministry of agriculture, Lagos state possesses about 5,000 per km to pressure on land for non-agricultural purpose. It also state “the aggregate food supplied internally is less than 10% of total food consumption but the ministry is hoping for 25% increase in the next five years’ time which is still not enough to feed everybody in the state.

One of the strategic measures the ministry is putting in place is Agricultural land holdings and management to improve access by genuine farmers to land.

Lagos state may be loving agriculture but land acquisition is still a major challenge that encounters farmers. Agricultural projects had been under-taken in other countries in multi-partnership but it’s still a strain on Lagos state farmers, projects like Songhai Benin republic.

With much of the contributions of lagos state Most Lagos state farmers recounting ordeals of how they have fared in land redistribution programme.

In an interview with Mr Eugene Njoku the chairman of Abundant Blessing Adiyan Co-operative Agricultural Multipurpose Society (ABACAMS) who has been suffering from  stroke since February of this year said “one afternoon we just saw caterpillar coming, destroying and uprooting everything we have worked for from cash crops to food crops’’ he said they weren’t given any notice of any kind, he added ‘’we have been farming on this fallow land for over 25years and the officials of water corporation and the Lagos state ministry of agriculture are all aware of our presence for this while’’.

In further investigations, it was discovered that Lagos state water corporation Adiyan fallow ground has been re-claimed by the corporation for construction of water projects to aid the industrialisation trend at expenses of agriculture.

Efforts made to speak with the construction company in charge of the project SALINI wasridiculed by the security officials who said’ ’you can talk to me, or I walk you out’’. Though he was in charge of the security details of the premises but information got from couldn’t be ascribed as fully credible. He said ‘’ this  place used to be a farm land before but now the Lagos state government has decided to use the place for water project………. You can’t meet anybody here until you go to the Lagos state government nobody will answer you.’’

“We have written letters to the Lagos state government, attorney-general, and ministry of agriculture but we have not being replied since 2012….. These are some of the letters (flaunting the letters).”

When he was asked about his health and the welfare of his members he said “you can see I am on stroke if you know how much I have spent on this illness….... if not for friends and families, I would have died since..” he also added “after this incidence, some people have died out of us.”

Challenges like this not only crush practising farmers but also scare young farmers and agriculture SME’s and stockholders into going into agriculture fallow lands may be called up by owners anytime hereby making agriculture in Lagos state a risk for farmers.

Efforts to get an interview from the Ministry of Agriculture were fruitless. When we tried to speak with MrsAbimbola (surname withheld) on a phone conversation she said “you can go ahead with your story……… we’ve tried all our best to help them but we can’t fight against ourselves ……..you understand……. We are both government agencies.”

The fate of the Abundant Blessings Adiyan Co-operative Agricultural Multipurpose Society is still animpeccable as farmers in the society are yet to gain their grounds after the incident. They plead with the government to assists them as some of them are thinking of going into other agro-businesses but are incapacitated by debt and loans they are yet to pay from their destroyed farmland.