Those Who Ridicule Agriculture as Foundation for National Development Naïve, Ignorant – NFGCS

The Nigerian Farmers Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS) has described those who ridicule agriculture as a foundation for national development as naive and ignorant about real national economic growth. The group urged Nigeria to prioritise adding value to what it can locally produce, warning that no place would be safe if the country continues to play with hungry and angry people. The National Coordinator, NFGCS, Mr. Reston Tedheke, who stated this in Abuja, on Tuesday said there must be a different approach to tackling economic challenges for Nigeria to work. Tedheke identified localization, industrialization and sustainable economic strategy as central to any approach aimed at reversing Nigeria’s economic challenges. According to him, the focus must be on productivity, processing, warehousing, rural stability and vocation manpower development that is focused on maize, cassava, yam, soy beans, palm trees, sesame, date palm, coconut, cattle, goats, sheep, fish, pigs among others. His words: “Our population is mostly not employable except in the art of farming. When a population is as uneducated as we are, we look for the low hanging fruits to get us rolling and working in large numbers even with machines. Our people, particularly in rural Nigeria, need to be engaged in large numbers before they engage us violently with devastating consequences. “Our effort must be on how to add value to what we can produce locally, it must be on extra jobs; it must be focused on nothing but managing the evolving rural Nigeria quagmire and turning what is currently becoming a curse to blessing. “The problem of Nigeria is Nigerians. Our failure as a country is our fault as a people. The USD is not coming down soon. Our hunger is not going away. We cannot import everything and expect our people to be free from the challenging economic mess we face. “There are no immediate solutions outside maize and cassava. No place will be safe if we continue to play with a hungry and angry uneducated population. Lagos is working even if slowly and steadily. Nigeria will work. “Holland makes about $5billion annually from exporting flowers and $100billion annually from agriculture and agribusiness. Those who ridicule agriculture as the only foundation for national development are naive and ignorant about real national economic growth.”