Amidst persistent high cost of food items, more household especially younger ones have decided to go into agriculture within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and its boundary communities.
While some of farmers see the development as a means to engage in subsistence farming, others embrace the farming for commercial purposes. As planting season begins, LEADERSHIP findings show that the farmers are largely planting crops such as maize, potatoes, cassava, groundnuts, wet-season beans, yams, peppers, tomatoes and in few cases, rice.
Some of the young farmers who spoke with me expressed mixed feelings over the persistent hunger in the land due to surge in food prices and the need for the federal government to implement policies that will ameliorate the economic hardship faced by many Nigerians.Chidimma Okafor, 26, and a first time farmer in Orozo community expressed feeling about her new practice.
Despite being a novice, she lamented high cost of inputs, stating that her embrace of farming was a question of survival. ” I have starting farming groundnut on an empty plot of land bought by my brother. I found that the inputs are quite expensive, for instance i bought a mudu of the seeds at N2, 000 and a herbicide of one litre at N5,500.
But you know not everyone can afford that. but for me, it’s a question of survival and i want to do everything within my capacity to have food enough this year. I am also planting maize on another plot near Karshi.” Chidimma said.
Another young farmer, Peter Lazarus, 23, a maize farmer who resides in Karshi told me he has cleared his farm land while he await rainfall to commence planting.
He also decried high cost of inputs, headers interruption and heightened cost of labour. Lazarus said, ” The high cost of food made me to go farming since last year and it has help me very well in terms of feeding, the only problem i have is the headers who move their cows to destroy our crops, that has being a discouragement for some of us.
I want the government to solve that problem and also help us with inputs such as fertiliser because it’s expensive”. Other young farmers such as Ismaila, 28, Yakubu 34, Agnes 30, and Adamilo 27 also expressed their feelings over the current high cost of while calling other youth to embrace farming as a solution to hunger.
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