Look beyond Oil, Embrace Agric – Says Women Group

female farmer

The Federal Government of Nigeria has been called upon to look beyond oil and embrace agriculture and its employment potentials, by supporting rural farmers across the country.

The President, Zontal Club Ibadan, Prof. Olufunke Egunjobi who made the call during the group’s visit to Akufo farming community in Ibadan said it was surprising that while many smaller nations earned huge foreign earnings and derived employment for its people in agriculture, Nigeria, with a favourable arable land, millions of willing farmers, had failed to invest in the sector.

While donating a solar/biomass hybrid dryer to the farmers, Egunjobi said, “This gesture is according to the mandate of the club to empower women through service and advocacy. In Nigeria and other parts of Africa, women are known to constitute between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of the rural farmers who produce the food we eat.

“These women remain strapped to the old traditional processing and preservation methods of our forefathers. But the mechanised way of drying farm produce will enhance the hygienic way of preserving our food.

“We have a lot to gain from agriculture if our government can visit the rural farmers and fashion out a realistic and functional way of helping them grow their crops, harvest them and preserve their yield. We can drive employment through agriculture because it is the largest employer of labour throughout the world.” she noted.

The chairman of the occasion, who is the Aare Alaasa of Ibadan land, High Chief Lekan Alabi, said with the falling crude oil price in the global market, there was the need to review government’s interest in agriculture.

Alabi noted that several factors hindered farmers’ access to aids and grants from the government. He however, thanked the women’s group – whose members are accomplished women drawn from business and other professions – for its interest in the life and work of the rural farmers.