FG Should Help Farmers To Make Food Cheap In Nigeria-Saliu Imam

Alhaji Saliu Imam is a farmer with decades of experience. In this interview with Kunle Bakare, he spoke on why the youths should embrace farming as their first vocation.

The Nigerian youths seem to be moving away from farming, what do you think is responsible for this?

What I can say is that they think or feel that it is full of risks because farming can be affected by many factors, which include climate change and government policies. I think if the government can introduce farm settlements with modern amenities it will make many youths to embrace farming as it will make life easier for them.

Another thing the government can do is to make soft loans available with just two percent interest or provide interest free loans to farmers. I think with this, the youths and even some interested adults can go into farming because very soon everybody will go into farming as a way of making ends meet. The job requires more physical activities, but the youths seem not to have interest in farming because they all want to stay in the city.

But it seems the efforts of the government aimed at improving agriculture are not producing positive results…

The administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan tried. During his tenure, crops were subsidised for farmers in their respective local governments. But due to abuse of government programmes, many non- farmers became direct beneficiaries of the assistance and for me, I still think more people would come into farming if land and crops will be given to them with proper monitoring. But I will not subscribe to a situation whereby a huge amount of money is given to people that are not farmers on the guise of assisting farmers.

The administration of former president Muhammadu Buhari initiated what is called “Anchor Borrowers,” but this did not see the light of the day because less attention was paid to agriculture, the few people that benefited from it were from the north.

What is the farmers association doing to ensure food sufficiency in the country and to fish out those that are pretending to be farmers?

There is no need to fish out anyone, the more the better because what is important to me is food sufficiency. However, we must get things right, the government should encourage banks to give loans to farmers at two percent interest rate. But it seems the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has turned itself to a commercial bank in the last 10 years as they do what they are not supposed to do by giving out loans directly, whereas this is not their business,

As for the farmers association, we are doing our best to let the government know that all their policies are being hijacked by mischievous public servants. Also, we educate members of the public on the importance of agriculture and I believe that is bringing good results now because hardly will you see a house now without backyard farming, especially in new site settlements.

How would you advise the administration of President Bola Tinubu on the need to improve agriculture?

How I wish I have access to him or whoever will be in charge of agriculture, I will just advise that agriculture should be prioritised and they should make it the business of local governments because they are very close to the people.

What are the identified problems that can affect farming?

Number one is security because lots of farmers cannot go to their farms due to fear of herdsmen attack and their farm products are also being eaten by animals. We should start by securing our farmlands, those who began planting in March this year are now regretting it because rain did not fall as expected and the few that survived have been eaten up by animals.

Then how do you think farmers can survive the dry season?

It is only through irrigation and it is very expensive. But if we can get subvention from the government and other agencies it will boost production.

Is it true that some products that are tagged hybrid crops can be produced within a short period and what is the implication of this on human health?

Yes, it is true because we now have plantains that can produce in six months. Let’s give it to technology and inventions by those who studied agriculture and I want to tell you that research is still on to discover more farming techniques for better productions, which is not harmful to humans.

What is your advise to the people?

I want to tell our people that farming is good because sometimes you may not be able to go out of your house. For instance, during the COVID 19 pandemic period, I depended on my backyard farming to sustain my family and everybody should start farming now for a better tomorrow.

What is your advise to farmers?

I just want to tell them not to depend too much on the government and the government too should assist us. I have great hope for Nigeria and we can do better. We only need to pray for our leaders to make Nigeria to be enviable among the comity of nations.