AFAN should avoid politicians interference, says Prof. Olakojo

·       *President cautions insecurity on food

Professor Samuel Adelowo Olakojo, a plant breeder at the Institute of Agricultural Research & Training (IAR&T) Moorplantation, Ibadan has call on the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) to eschew politicians’ interference in its activities towards better performance for Agriculture in relation to its members’ welfare and the sector in general.

Prof. Olakojo said this in response to some of the farmer’ requests at a session he chaired during the 2021 annual research review of the IAR&T, at Ibadan recently.

Prof. Olakojo advised that AFAN would be more functional as a pressure group than being allowed to be divided by politicians who are out for their ulterior motives and agenda executions, saying that the Association should free itself from political interference in order to be  more effective in its mandate towards food security in Nigeria.

This advice is coming on the heel of the statement made by the chairman of the South West, AFAN, Otunba Femi Oke who had said there should be no divide and rule between the government and AFAN, saying the partnership between the two through her agencies would enhance agriculture as a business and youth encouragement into farming.

Prof. Olakojo said that ‘’ On AFAN, politicians have divided AFAN. As long as you romance with politicians as a Non Governmental Organization (NGO), your position as pressure group will not be possible. They will be dictating to you with their new idea and new intentions that may not conform with your association’s mandate. Therefore you should remove government interference from your association to become a formidable pressure group on government policies on agriculture’’

He however advised them to work towards owning their bank through estimation levy of N20, 000 per farmer with assuming population of about 100 million using Rabobank in Netherlands as example Nigeria farmers can replicate to get financial freedom for agricultural activities with friendly borrowing conditions.

In another development in a press statement signed by the AFAN’s national president, Architect Kabiru titled ‘’ The Nexus between insecurity and food security: AFAN experience’’ the association is calling the attention of every Nigerians to the insecurity situation that has made it impossible for farmers in almost all the regions to have access to farms, and thereby deepening the food insecurity situation in the country.

The statement credited that small scale farmers are the most hit as their access to farm land and mechanization have been short-changed, saying ‘‘ the most vulnerable segment of the society bearing the brunt of this insecurity is the small holder farmers who are the engine room of food production in Nigeria with  of course largely to inadequate mechanization’’

‘‘The farmers cannot readily access their farms in the North East, North West and good part of the North Central which constitutes the food basket of the country. So it is absolutely necessary to secure the farmland and the farmers who work the land’’

It was stated further that ‘‘ the incidents of burning police stations in the South East, the farmers/herder conflicts in the South west and the kidnapping and general insecurity in the South- South portend food shortage in the whole nation in 2021 and therefore calls for concerted effort from all and sundry, government most of all’’

On weather prediction, the statement said that ‘‘ the forecasts of flooding by Nigerian Metrological Agency (NIMET) and the enumeration of possible prone areas by the directorate of hydrology of the federal Ministry of Water Resources (FMWR) further make the desired food sufficiency effort more precarious and so the farmers should be educated on the best methods to adopt to mitigate the effect of flooding in the food system’’