The rainy season is here. But, how many people are willing and ready to till the soil? There is no shortage of arable farmlands, but farmers are becoming fewer.
The huge population of youths avoids the farms like a plague. It is a no-go area. They loathe the early morning dew and the insects in thick forests where lie the dignity of labour. The price of laziness, to some people, may be hunger, even in the rural areas.
Reality may have now dawned on the Southwest that it cannot adequately feed itself without relying on food supply from other zones. This is worrisome because farming was an age-long, inherited occupation in the zone; it was a culture into which able-bodied youths were inducted from a very tender age.
In the glorious days of the Southwest, farmers were perceived as dutiful, responsible, and successful people who could conveniently feed their usually large polygamous families, pay taxes, and educate their children, some up to the university. Many who became lawyers, teachers, accountants, engineers, bankers, professors, and civil servants were children of big-time farmers.
When the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was premier, agriculture was the mainstay of the region’s economy. The least of the problems was food. So surplus was food that it was often wasted. The era of “buje-budanu” (eat well and throw away the excess) was prevalent then. There was no canning or storage facility. But, the barns, despite the threats and attacks by animals, sustained households throughout the year.
Cash crops also fetched a lot of revenue. Cocoa and coffee were chief crops. Now, countless economic trees of old are nowhere to be found. The relics of farm settlements only remind residents of the region about where and how they missed it.
Today, the story is different. Awolowo and his regional Ministers of Agriculture – Chief Meredith Adisa Akinloye and High Chief Gabriel Akin-Deko, Lisa Abejoye of Idanre – may be turning in their graves. The labours of the region’s heroes’ past appear to be in vain. It may be because there are few worthy latter-day successors to build on their legacies in the critical sector.
The few farmers in remote farms are in pain. They complain about the lack of access roads in the rural areas to facilitate the transportation of farm produce to urban markets. Many crops decay because they are perishable. This discourages many farmers.
Some years back, a sort of food crisis was orchestrated to the detriment of the three Southern regions. Some aggrieved Northern farmers and herders blocked the roads to the South from the North. They were protesting the alleged maltreatment of their kith and kin during the isolated crisis in the South.
Vehicles conveying foodstuffs to the West were stopped from completing their journey. The traders and the lorry-loads of foodstuffs were stuck on the highway. For a week, the South was enveloped in anxiety. They lamented the shortage of foodstuffs which they could have easily harvested in their backyard gardens if they had not neglected agriculture to their peril.
The lessons are instructive. The blockage was a wake-up call. Up to now, the region has yet to heed the call. The Western Region that previously relied on agriculture and reaped huge benefits from it in the fifties and sixties became a casualty of a curious shift or neglect. The children of Oduduwa became helpless. The import was not lost on discerning leaders of the region.
It was a brief moment of agony at the Mile 12 Market in Ketu, Lagos. For a few days, prices of yams, tomatoes, peppers, onions and fruits went up. Momentarily, there was panic buying. The news about the blockage had spread, sparking anxiety.
Up North, there was agitation among farmers too. Their articles of trade – the farm produce – are perishable. Northern farmers needed the Southern market to quickly dispose of their produce and earn money, in the absence of an effective canning system. If they are not sold on time, the foodstuffs will rot away. Therefore, the prospects of revenue loss also created apprehension for the farmers.
It would, therefore, mean that food sufficiency in the Southwest through the development of agriculture has implications for the North. It is either Northern farmers would reduce the prices of foodstuffs from their region or look for an alternative market elsewhere. But that is only possible if the Southwest takes the mockery seriously and returns to the basics.
The six Southwest states of Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti, and Lagos are blessed with vast arable lands. Most lands in Yoruba land have remained uncultivated. Geographers describe the zone as tropical rainforest. Tilling the land in Yoruba land may not require irrigation and fertilisers, unlike some parts of the North, which are semi-arid.
In pre-colonial Yoruba land, food was surplus. Even warriors, during intra-tribal wars in Yoruba land, knowing that their expeditions might last months or years, would plant maize and yam, which they harvested to augment food supplies from the home front.
During the 16-year Ekiti Parapo war involving Ibadan/Oyo and Ekiti/Ijesa/Akoko, warriors on both sides went to battlefields with seedlings. As they were prosecuting the wars, they were planting. They had bountiful harvests with which they complemented food supplies from their home bases.
Back home, the Alaafins of yore, who reigned over the Oyo Empire, were big-time farmers. Food sufficiency was a source of pride and security. In Ijesa land, for example, it was said that plantain, which was in abundance, was only meant for birds! In Ekiti axis, the farm was likened to a paradise: (Aye oko, ajed’oba ni – a farmer’s life is savoured like royalty); (Aye oko, ajedorun – a farmer’s life is savoured from the earth to heaven)
The story was said about how the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) founding evangelist, Apostle Ayodele Babalola, stormed a crusade in Ilesa with some plantains. As he raised them up, he predicted that a time would come when the berry would be expensive. Many members of the congregation never believed him. The reality later caught up with their offspring.
Indeed, time has changed. In Ijesa, and indeed in many parts of the region, bananas is now expensive, sometimes beyond the reach of the people.
Ace musician King Sunny Ade saw the danger coming. In one of his albums in the eighties, he warned about the consequence of neglecting farming: ‘Ko s’agbe mo loko, ara oko ti dari wale.’ (No farmer is left on the farm again; they have returned home).
Southwest can only boast of a few farmers at the moment, relative to the general population. The tribe of farmers is fading. Southwest farmers are aging. The youths, in pursuit of elusive white-collar jobs, see agriculture as a highly laborious, less economically rewarding, and dirty occupation. Some prefer to operate commercial motorcycles, popularly called ‘Okada’, to make ends meet. Many follow politicians around for crumbs falling off the tables of big shots. Deviant youths engage in advance free fraud, cybercrime and armed robbery. Since rural areas are not conducive, they migrate to the cities in search of imaginary employment.
In fact, the Yoruba elite who go into farming are not proud of being addressed as farmers. They are, as Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo once said, “agric businessmen.” Even at that, their agricultural activities are restricted to poultry and small-scale, backyard animal husbandry.
Where are the farm settlements of the Awolowo era? Is there anything like an extension service again? Between 1955 and 1990, nearly all the rural Southwest public primary and secondary schools had school farms or gardens. Children were inducted into agricultural practices from the onset. It was a tradition. Many schools even had poultry and piggery. Some had fish ponds. In the rural areas, after the close of school on Friday, many day students would proceed to the farms to join their peasant-farmer parents. Today, there are pupils in the Southwest who think that yam tubers are plucked from trees.
Also, teachers and other government workers in the towns and villages were given lands on lease for farming. Apart from achieving food security, they sold to earn money to augment their income.
In the old Western Region, Awolowo used proceeds from agriculture to develop the region. There was no oil money. Yet, the government provided free education and free health services. Many roads were constructed. Housing and industrial estates sprang up. Liberty Stadium, Ibadan, the first television station, Cocoa House, and Oodua Group are legacies of the administration. Up to now, the feats of the government have not been matched by successive administrations.
The size of a farm conferred class and distinction on the owner in the olden days. Men’s crops included yam, maize, rice, beans, cocoa, coconut, palm tree, kolanut, orange, and mango. Women’s crops were vegetables, pepper, and garden eggs, among other berries.
In those days, modern farm implements were scarce. Is it not pathetic that a sort of food crisis hit the Southwest, despite its fertile land, opportunities for mechanised farming and improved seedlings?
Lamentably, farming is also threatened by banditry and cattle rustling. The few farmers do not have respite on their farms. In Yewa, Ibarapa, and Oke-Ogun areas of Oyo State as well as some parts of Ondo and Ekiti states, farmers are harassed on their farms by strangers from other climes. They are kidnapped, maimed, raped, killed and sacked. Their crops are destroyed by cattle rearers and their labour has become a pain due to the activities of kidnappers.
The Southwest needs to face the reality of the danger of hunger that lies ahead. The six state governments should intensify efforts on how to encourage the youth to embrace agriculture. More incentives should be provided. More rural roads should be constructed to facilitate the transportation of farm produce to the cities. The region should go back to basics.
There is an urgent need for the region to return to the days of agricultural cooperative societies. Through these, the farmer can access soft loans to boost their business and focus well.
Farmers also need security. The fear of being seized on the farm by daredevils looking for the shortest road to wealth through kidnapping gives farmers nightmares. No one wants to be abducted while doing his/her legitimate job.
With an urgent return to the Awolowo days in the Southwest, the region can conveniently feed itself and even export the excess. It is time for the residents to roll up their sleeves and guard their loins for food to return to the table. The region has the manpower and the land. It only needs an effective organisation of the people to ensure success.
