The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria has urged governments to pay more attention to agriculture with a view to revive citizens’ interest to ensure food sufficiency and improvement of the country’s gross domestic product.
The bishops, through their development agency, Caritas Nigeria, spoke at Awo Ekiti in the Irepodun/Ifelodun Local Government area of Ekiti State on Thursday during the flag-off ceremony of agricultural inputs distribution to 500 farming households in Ekiti State that they organized with the support of Conrad Hilton.
In the batch, 150 farmers from Ekiti South West Local Government and Irepodun/Ifelodun Local Government areas, who were trained in agricultural practices, were empowered with a Knapsack sprayer, 10kg of improved maize seeds and cassava stems each free of charge at the two-day event which held on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Executive Secretary of Caritas Nigeria, Rev. Fr Peter Audu, who described agriculture as the life-wire of every country since everybody must eat, said, “With agriculture, there will be enough to sustain and keep our country. I will urge the government to still do everything within its power to revive this special sector, agriculture.
Audu advised governments to encourage farmers, particularly the peasant farmers in rural communities by providing the enabling environment, saying, “It will be good to boost agriculture. Governments should support farmers by providing the enabling environment in terms of seedlings, space and mechanisation.
“Many persons want to farm, they don’t have access to the land, and when you produce, how do you sell? The market is not there! And because the ordinary farmers cannot produce enough to be able to compete with those who are into mechanized farming. They need support. Governments can provide all these mechanisation. The governments can intervene.”
The Director of Humanitarian Services, Caritas Nigeria, Nkese Udongwo, said, “The programme is targeted at very vulnerable households to see how we can train them on climate smart agricultural practices, empower them with agricultural inputs and enable them to be raised out of poverty to be able to take good care of themselves and be able to cultivate on their own.
Udongwo appealed to the beneficiaries “to make good use of the inputs given to them and plant in such a way they will be able to have what to plant for next season”.
The B-SLIC Project Manager, Mr Bankole Akinyele, said that the project was extended based on its positive impact on vulnerable families and communities, particularly in the aspect of reducing poverty in its first two years.
Akinyele, while giving a breakdown, said, “We work in four local governments, two in Lagos and two in Ekiti. This year, in Ekiti, we are in the South West and Irepodun/Ifelodun Local government areas. This is the third year of our programme where we are distributing inputs to our farmers.
“We have trained the beneficiaries on good agronomy practices and climate-smart agriculture. We trained them on how to make home made fertilisers, to make home made insecticide, how to take care their small ruminants at home.
“After the training, what we are doing today is to empower them so that they can go back and implement those things that we have trained them. We are supporting them so that their farming activities can expand. In total, for this particular year, we are targeting 1000 farmers in the two states.
“They are in categories: We have trained some women in livestock management, after training, we gave them 10 five-weeks old Noiler birds, a bag of feeds, a feeder and a drinker and some other things free.
“We have another batch that we gave goats to – male and a female, in other locations, we have some that we gave piglets to – a male and a female, the essence is for them to rear the animals and make money out of it so that they can buy again. For the animals to multiply
“We have another group that we train on homestead gardening; those set of people were given improved seeds – tomato seeds, pepper seeds, okro seeds and ugwu (pumpkin) so that they can go and start gardening in their homes. All these things are to make sure we reduce poverty in our communities,” Akinyele said.
