My father, of blessed memory, was a Civil Engineer and a farmer in every way.
I mean, I remember as children that we had portions of land at the backyard, where he gave us tomato, pepper and corn to Plant.
For dad, dinner was the same for as long as I can remember, the legendary "Agidi and efo-riro".
Basically everything required for the spinach, came from the back of the house.
I believe of all the things that we have to purchase in order to survive in this life will be food & water, medicine and shelter, in that order and all others follow based on individual needs and wants.
It’s therefore no surprise at all that in the history of our great nation, majority of our ancestors were farmers.
It seemed almost everyone had farms. We have learned in history that the men married many wives so that they could have many children and therefore many hands on the farm.
I had been telling anyone that needed to hear that 2016 would be a good time to start farming, considering our realization that black gold is about taking a dive.
The beginning of the year, however, I became comfortable again until the tomato scarcity season.
We were buying a basket of tomatoes for 40,000 naira!
Unbelievable!
If it was ever costly (and because it is seasonal, there were times of slight price hikes), it went for as much as 8,500 naira but never 10,000.
It was as if someone slapped me off my deep sleep. What the hell was I doing? There is land so what is my excuse?
I started with the basics; spinach (tete), ewedu (corchorus), okra, and ugwu (pumpkin) leaves.
For a few months I was enjoying fresh leaves from the back of the house.
I decided to get ambitious, got carrot, cabbage and lettuce seeds and planted.
When they sprouted, I basically leaped for joy!
I know it sounds stupid, but I think somewhere at the back of my mind , I didn’t believe these things could be planted and harvested .
There was no stopping me o! I went on YouTube…yes! Spend your data on something that will add to you. I learned how to plant garlic…and yeah , I was about to deliver myself from buying garlic every month , simply because I planted it.
A recent incidence jolted me again.
Remember that slap from deep sleep?
I wanted to plant yams, I mean who wouldn’t, if there were available land? Have you checked out the price of yams recently?
So I thought it will be best to check some villages in the rural end for “yam heads”, for planting. I wanted 400.
The last week we combed three different villages and came up with 58 pieces. What is happening?
We talked with some farmers and they informed us that the government had paid lots of money for them and a number of farmers have sold out their yams.
FINALLY, Nigeria is waking up!
Recession has slapped her out of deep sleep!
If there is plenty of food of course the price will reduce.
A basket of tomatoes came down to 900 naira, because almost everyone planted tomatoes at the time of scarcity, and the farmers had received education on how to prevent loss from “Tuta Absoluta”.
I think we can still do more with farming. I remember the days of "Operation Feed the Nation", there was food. The nation was fed … we need to take farming more seriously. Not just the government, you and I.
Start with your backyard.
Anywhere you have land, JUST DO IT; JUST FARM!