Departing the drudgery, limitations of traditional farming culture
That agriculture is one grandeur sector upon which the Nigerian economy can be structured for diversification, has gone beyond contest. Plethora of potentials — human and natural resources — have justified the strength of possibilities lying before the Country if the potentials are productively harness. However, the poor productivity profile of the sector owing to the pronouncement of the traditional practice which still saturate the workings of the sector has remained too loud, overshadowing the resemblance of a mechanised and technological driven system which is the seat to propel a massive agricultural revolution to strongly diversify the economy.
The cultivation culture shrouded by the traditional patterns of practices ridden with the drudgery and the vagaries of seasonal fluctuations are deep seated gaps which are largely far from the resemblance of a reliable system driven by modern development. The unreliability of season-driven-cultivation with such traditional techniques such as bush fallowing, rotational farming, grafting and agro-forestry have shown it’s limitations, as such natural preconditions as draught and flooding, among other patterns of climate change, remain factors of inconsistencies which pose strains of losses to farmers as well as limitations of determinable parameters for cultivation.
Revolutionised system of agriculture embodying the patterns of such modern technologies as the Vertical Farming, using indoor techniques and Controlled-Environment Agriculture (CEA) technology, have far gone become the way of a new civilisation in the advanced world. Hydroponics, Aeroponics, Aquaponics, and Polyhouse/Polytunnel farming are fast becoming the new civilisation the advanced world are leveraging on to out-smart the limitations of climate and the vagaries of natural conditions. Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Automation, and Robotics, are technological innovations which have been integrated into the farming system to embellish the civilisation of mechanisation in the agricultural sector.
The need for a shift from the prevailing system in Nigeria, largely saturated by manual labour with the use of local implements and working animals such as oxen, cows, horses and mules which overshadow the culture of Agricultural practice in the Country, is paramount. Moving towards the use of mechanised agriculture and the new technologies of farming techniques has become the way for Nigeria to go to have an agriculture sector that bears resemblance with new farming civilisation, which is non negotiable to structure the Nigerian economy along the virile line of a diversified economy, strengthened with possibilities of strong revenue base and robust employment opportunities.
The Federal Government had on Tuesday, convened a work shop to brainstorm and deliberate on the challenging issues and constraints affecting the full realisation of it’s commitment in achieving food sufficiency, employment generation and wealth creation through irrigated agriculture. Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu who said this in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital at the opening of the North-Central Regional Workshop on Establishment/Strengthening of Water Association for Management of Public Irrigation Schemes on Tuesday, was quoted: “We have also taken a giant stride towards attaining food sufficiency and security. This is achievable through irrigated agriculture by promoting all-season farming, which is also one of the primary mandates of the department of irrigation and drainage of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, in partnership with the River Basin Development Authority.
“Consequently, a wholesome change in the irrigational institution management framework as proposed by the transforming irrigation management of the Nigerian project including the reorganisation of sector water user associations and formation of water users’ groups along hydraulic structures is inevitable in order to sustain the systems of the farmers in the irrigation scheme. The training project is a World Bank-sponsored programme under the Federal Ministry of Water Resources with the principal aim of transforming irrigation management in Nigeria.
“I, therefore, want to use this medium to call on this workshop to brainstorm and deliberate on the challenging issues and constraints affecting the full realization of the Federal Government’s commitment in achieving food sufficiency, employment generation and wealth creation through irrigated agriculture.” In his address, Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, represented by his Deputy, Kayode Alabi had said that the scheme is to ensure Farmers’ complete involvement in irrigation right from conceptualisation (the planning stage) to the implementation and management level with a view to sustaining it.
The shift to large-scale commercial based agriculture defined by the integration of machines and technological innovations since the wake of the Industrial Revolution has become the way to go for macro productivity. The new civilisation has made farming more alluring with the profitability of mass productivity, quality improvement and production efficiency, while knocking off climate limitations and the phenomenon of drudgery associated with the labour-intensive traditional culture of farming. While Nigeria cannot be said to be unaware of the benefits of the new civilisation in the sector, it is inarguable the efforts towards moving towards this frame of industrial orientation, are still infinitesimal compared to the desideratum. Hence, agriculture in the Country is still far closer to the lines of the traditional labour-intensive culture subjected to the vagaries of climate and seasons, than it is to the profile of the civilised culture of the industrial work of the 21st Century.
It has become nonnegotiable for the Government, if it so wishes to develop agriculture as a robust base for diversifying the economy, to redirect the orientation of farming in the Country by massive investments engineered by coordinated policies to give quicker resemblance to the civilisation of an industrial farming revolution driven by mechanisation and modern technologies.
