The Vice President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) in Osun State, Mr. Moses Oladipupo, has called on the government to support youths who venture into farming.
Oladipupo made the call in an interview in Osogbo, the Osun State capital
He said the majority of youths who returned to the farm were being discouraged because of the challenges.
“The majority of the youth that returned to farming decried the hardship they were facing in their operations.
“Many are complaining of the old system of farming and lack of funds for their operations,’’ he said.
Oladipupo also said genuine farmers were being short-changed in the distribution of farm input, urging that this should be redressed.
“The government should give farmers and those interested in farming land, good training and funds while extension workers should be recruited to monitor farming operations and production.
“If the government could provide needed tools and materials, youth farmers would have no reason to quit farming,’’ he said.
He called on the government to encourage small-scale farmers, adding that most government policies and programmes only focus on commercial farmers.
“Small scale farmers are many and their production is what is sustaining the local market while commercial farmers produce for external markets.
“For this reason, the government should concentrate more on small-scale farmers to boost food production that would sustain the nation,’’ he said.
AFAN president has well said, as a graduate of agriculture, practicing farming on a daily basis despite all odd, 2017 alone, I have to visit private micro finance bank to be able to finance 2017 cropping season on a 5% interest " on a decreasing balance" this is quite unfortunate for our government, the real farmers have no access to funding while fake farmers are miss appropriating Agric loan, very unfortunate
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