The Executive Director, Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN), Dr Patrick Olusanmi Adebola, has reiterated that the youths have indispensable role to play in revamping the economy of the country through agriculture.
Dr Patrick, who stated this in a conversation with our correspondent today, Tuesday, October 4, 2022, on telephone, noted that agriculture is a sector that can never lose relevance, because, people would always look for what to eat.
“If the youths of this country will give themselves to agriculture, with keen interest, the problem of food security would have been solved, long ago. One important thing about agriculture is that everyone has a space. If you are not cultivating land or raising livestock, you may be processing the produce, if you don’t process, you may be in the storage or distribution”.
Speaking further, he explained that most Nigerian youths today are more interested in technology; according to him, it is not wise, especially as everyone is leaving the primary production aspect of farming for few young persons and the senior citizens.
“Agriculture can never be out of fashion. Some years ago, Nigeria was concentrating on oil. Today, oil has almost lost its relevance, the agriculture that was neglected has to come to the rescue. The truth is that the tech guys, the doctors, the teachers and all other professionals will always need food. The world can never create substitute for food. It can only substitute other things. And you need food to survive, or have you not eaten today?
Unfortunately, the primary production aspect of farming, which involves crop production and animal husbandry has been abandoned by the youths. They prefer going into processing, storage and marketing. But if nothing is produced and harvested how would you get what to process or sell? That is why we need to go back to the farm. If the zeal with which the youths embrace tech is used to embrace farming, the country’s development would have been tremendous. Check the pace of our economic growth before the oil boom took our attention away from the farm.”