An agriculturist and founder of UMeRA Business School, Ms Olamide Alao, has urged more Nigerians, especially the youths to embrace agriculture to mitigate the impending food crisis.
Alao, who made the call in a chat with The Guardian in Bodija, Ibadan, Oyo State, raised the alarm that food might be expensive and be out of reach next year.
She said, ‘’There will be food but it will be more expensive. Then, the time is now for more people to get into agriculture. We have a lot of arable lands in Nigeria. Why are people not doing agriculture? Many people believe that when you do agriculture, your hands will get dirty. I think this is the time to sit down and think of policies and regulations that we can put in place for the agricultural companies to supply more.
“’We need technology to improve our mills. There is vast arable land in Nigeria. We are blessed as a nation that other developed countries are looking up to us for our produce. It doesn’t take any extra eyes to know that we are blessed with our produce. We have value to offer. I mean, technology will go a very long way to improve our mills.”
She also called on the government to set up a Board for each sub-sector in agriculture to drive the aggregate economy.
‘’For us to have stability in our economy going forward, in the agricultural sector, there is a compelling need for the government to sit down and look at the sub-sectors that are driving our economy. The cash crops have been driving our economy. The sub-sectors can be grouped and then form a Board for each group. The board will then come up with regulations to help those agricultural products to thrive,’’ she said.
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