Omolabake Fasogbon
The British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) has blamed poor performance in the agriculture sector on the low level of education among farmers in the country.
This, the BATNF said was causing them to reject modern techniques.
Chairman, Board of Directors, BATNF, Kola Jamodu, stated this during the launch of the foundation’s ‘Wealth is Here’ campaign in Lagos, recently.
Jamodu, acknowledged the prospect in the nation’s agriculture industry, responsible for highest number of employment in the country.
He said despite available resources, agriculture contribution to the economy was still low.
According to him, with the country’s population as an asset, favorable climate and arable land mass of 78.5 million hectares, the agro sector was supposed to be the largest contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
But this has been prevented as a result of low adaptation level of farmers to new trends and youths’ unwillingness to explore the sector, he said.
He added: ” There are predominantly elderly and uninformed smallholder farmers in the field, many of whom live in rural communities.
“Their level of education inhibits their ability to accept and adapt good agricultural practices for high yields, climate resilience and optimum benefits.
“On the other hand, many of the educated Nigerian youths are not interested in the business but seem pre- occupied on migrating to Caĺnada, Europe or any other country that looks more promising”.
It was on this ground that the foundation decided to come up with the ‘Wealth is Here’ to stir youths interest in agriculture through necessary support, added BATN Managing Director, Yarub Al- Bahrani.
Al- Bahrani explained that the campaign was to change popular narratives that Nigeria had nothing to offer. This, Al-Bahrani said always informed human capital flight among the youths in particular.
“He said, “The initiative sought to promote sustainable agriculture through several processes majorly to actively engage federal government and series of empowerment programmes such as the Farmers for the Future project and Lagos Farm Fair, amongst others.
“This will certainly push our objectives and improve agriculture output further from 21.9 per cent where it presently stands.”
Also speaking at the launch, Lagos State Director of the National Orientation Agency, NOA, Mr Waheed Ishola, lauded the initiative, adding that it was apt, considering the recent xenophobic attack on Nigerians youths in South Africa.
He assured that they would work to see how some of the returnees could tap into some of the opportunities of the initiative and get them completely integrated into the system.
“We are happy and ready to fully partner with the ‘Wealth is Here’ initiative in ensuring that we keep our youths in Nigeria and encourage them to go the agro-preneural way.”
