Sending the youth to the farm is not the solution to our agricultural problem, following the right approach is. Part 3
.jpg)
Thank you for always joining me for this series, I do hope it go a long way in improving our agricultural sector in Nigeria, Africa and the world at large.
If you have not been following, you can read the first two parts [here] and [here]. For this is a continuation of the first two posts.
Please, it would be my pleasure to see you resteeming this series,you can help to spread it to the right people by doing just that . Thank you
I want to talk about another vital plan we have to make before asking for more people to embark on farming.
Just a recap of the first two posts, we have been able to see that the following must be put in place if we want our agricultural sector to improve
Merging of operation feed the nation and farm settlement together
Establishing a common market for our farm produce
Investing on advanced mechanized devices
Investing in the improvement of our research institutes.
If all the above listed are put in place, it would do a lot of help to our agricultural sector.
I would be talking about what next after putting those things in place, and today, I would be talking about TRAINING and PROCESSING
Well, agriculture is not something anybody can handle anyhow just like the general perception of the people.
Agriculture is not something you can venture into as a result of you not getting job. YOU NEED TO BE TRAINED
to become a doctor, it's not something you just sit back at home and decide, you have to go to school and get trained. Likewise farming too, you can't be a farmer by just deciding you want to
become one, you have to go for training
Asking the youth to go into farming without giving them a proper training is like sending quark into the medical profession, all they would be able to do best correctly is to murder their patients.
The training I'm talking about don't necessarily has to be formal, in fact the informal training would be the best because it would expose people to the real field practical.
When all measures are in place, sending the youth to farm before sending them for training is just a wasting of time as much as wasting of our efforts
I could remember when I started my poultry farm like 6 years ago. It was my passion that led me into it, no formal or informal training. I end up loosing some of the chickens to something that should have not happened if I was aware before I jumped into it.
This is just what we will be repeating if we send young people into the farm just for the passion to improve our farming sector without training them.
The other part of today's discussion is processing. Many farmers were forced to sell their highly perishable farm produce at a very cheaper rate, because they would end up loosing all if they don't do it.
The middle men knew this and they are taking the advantage.
Can you imagine investing hundreds of thousands in farm and end up loosing part of your money if not all. Farming is a game of gambling, because their are so many factors that are responsible for a successful farming, but if every measure are in place, it would go a long way in overcoming some of the risks.
We are producing more than enough tomatoes in the Northern part of Nigeria which if we process into paste would last us at least a year without the need to Import from any where except if we would be exporting it.
Agriculture is not about production alone, we have the processing also which is as important as producing.
Not all can be on the field cultivating crops or rearing animals, we can get people trained for processing farm products into usable products.
You can't be successful in farming if you don't have passion for it, the trying time is enough to chase you out. To sustain our farming sector, we have to start with training people before sending them to farm.
Our young people need to be trained for both the production and the processing.
Thank you for reading through, be expecting another part of this series in my next post on agriculture.
I love you all.