Solving Nigeria's Agro Challenges the Ethiopian Way

Nigerians are not lazy. I meet enough people everyday, I interact with some, I watch others closely and I befriend a few. In nearly all cases, I see only people who are willing to work their way out of poverty.
You just have to show them how.

                                                                 Audu Ogbeh, Minister for Agriculture

This is where I think the government has failed.

The FG is screaming itself hoarse on national radio/television, the pages of newspapers and the likes to convince people to return to the farms. But it's been all noise no substance. The results have been pathetic. There are still more unemployed Nigerians than the employed and the situation continues to worsen.

Elected leaders may go about recruiting more men and women into the police, military, civil service and such state and federal agencies but the obvious truth is that no government can effectively employ its entire citizenry.
It's not possible in tiny Togo how much more the most populous black nation on the face of the earth!

A wise government recognizes this and channel majority of its efforts towards inspiring its populace towards fending for and feeding itself.

This is where I commend the Ethiopian Farm Model. Needless to say, there are so many lessons we can pick from our eastern brothers.

Ethiopia is the second most populous nation on the black continent with almost 100million people, yet she's able to grow enough to feed her people and even have some more for export.
The Horn of Africa is one of the largest producers and exporters of coffee, maize and cereals in Africa.

The government of the East Africa nation commits about 15% of the budget yearly to support agriculture and aggressively attracts international organizations like the Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation to help drive its farming policies and empower its mostly smallholder farmers.

As gigantic as the Nigerian budget is constructed annually, never have we devoted 5% to the agricultural sector. In fact, recently, it has mostly hover around the 1.5% mark. That's paying lip service to the Transformation Agenda in that sector.

We can fool no one but ourselves. If this regime is serious about providing jobs for the majority of its educated and uneducated folks, the answer is not in trading blames, importing goods, establishing more federal agencies, recruiting more into the civil service, or providing free daily breakfast for all unemployed youths. The answer lies in investing smartly in agriculture .

And it all starts with the 2016 budget!

Creating Wealth from Lagos' increasing population

                                                                                                                                                               Nigerian Market 

The population of Lagos state scares me.

Lagos has a population estimated at 21 million in 2014, which makes it the largest city in Africa and one of the world’s most populous. It surpassed Cairo that once held the title as far back as 2012. And you can bet on it that it will still continue to enjoy tremendous growth.

It’s really intimidating when you compare it with other states and it’s only the ancient city of Kano (with about 10 million people) that even comes anywhere close to seeing its fast fading shadows.  

Even scarier is the fact that there are a larger number of people whose data have not been completely captured by any of the government agencies, which means that millions of people living in and around the Centre of Excellence are not even accounted for.

One thing is certain, whether they are numbered among the populace or not, all Lagosians need to be fed on a daily basis.

Get the picture: every day over 20 million individuals eat at least once before midnight.

Make Huge Profit in Cashew Farming

 

Are you looking for a cash crop with a great potential to create jobs for you and others, generate considerable export opportunities, is low in farming risk and is able to bring a bigger income for farmers in rural areas? Then look no further than Cashew!

Cashew is not everyone’s favorite fruit but the cashew apple and the cashew nut are some of the farmer’s biggest moneymakers in Nigeria and in Africa at large.

The cashew apple has a succulent flesh that is sweet to taste. Its nut can be consumed as snacks. Cashew oil, obtain from cold-pressing the cashew, is used for cooking. The bark of the cashew tree is also medicinal.

 

Cashew is so widely known, popularly eaten and a ready resource for various other products that it is a given that farmers growing the crop will continue to generate revenue from it.