Alhaji Musa Arab, a large-scale rice farmer in Gombe State, has blamed insufficient investment and a lack of extension officers for the agriculture sector’s slow development after independence.
This was said by Arab in an interview with the Nigerian News Agency (NAN) on Thursday, ahead of the country’s 61st Independence Day on October 1.
He told NAN that the agriculture sector has been put to the background and increasingly ignored since the discovery of crude oil.
He stated that despite the sector’s neglect and lack of funding, agriculture has remained the country’s largest employer of labor and adds to the county’s Gross Domestic Product on an annual basis.
“In those days, we had farmers who focused on raw-material-based agriculture like cocoa, rubber, cotton, and groundnut and export same outside as well as feed the many industries in the country.
“Today many farmers are cultivating only food crops to boost food security and prevent hunger; how many of the farmers are cultivating cotton and rubber in large scales as before?,” he said.
The rice farmer attributed to the dearth of industries in the country and the ever growing population that needed food to the gradual shift from raw-material-based agriculture to food-based agriculture.
He, however, commended the President Muhammadu Buhari- led administration for “sincerely investing in agriculture and returning it to the prestigious stage that attract more people into farming.
“We never knew agriculture was this lucrative until Mr President created that pathway through anchor borrowers loan, border closing initiative and eat-what-you-grow policy, amongst others.
“Today, we have started seeing the return of rice pyramid; this is what we are talking about. We must genuinely and deliberately put money into developing the sector and assisting genuine farmers,” he said.
Arab appealed to the Federal Government to check the diversion of loans to fake farmers, subsidise inputs and implements, re-introduce marketing boards and upgrade storage facilities across the country.
He also appealed to government at all levels to engage more extension officers that would penetrate rural communities and teach farmers the modern techniques of farming and the need to use improved seed varieties