By Akinnodi Francis, Ondo
Economic experts have called for the adoption of policies that would support all-year-round farming to mitigate hunger and malnutrition in the country.
Speaking with THE HOPE recently, they said that all-year-round farming would enable the country to feed its growing population.
An economist, Prof. Timothy Awe, said that the country would overcome issues relating to food scarcity, insufficiency and insecurity by embracing all-year-round farming.
He observed that the present seasonal farming practice was old-fashioned and stressed the need for sustained food production to feed the nation.
He noted that the country needed to move away from the traditional rain-fed practice to all-year-round farming, adding that it would aid food security.
“Nigeria can mitigate issues related to food scarcity by practising agriculture all year round and not depending on rainfall, which dominates the practice now.
“When you do all-year-round agriculture, you don’t have any gaps, and this is what happens in some countries that have food security.
“If you look at some countries in Europe and the United States, as well as Brazil, they practise agriculture all year round, except during periods when the climate will not allow it.
“What they do is produce food that will thrive in the climatic conditions prevailing at that time,” he said.
The National President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr Kabir Ibrahim, said, “In the middle of winter, for instance, in France, you might not be able to grow corn, but you can grow other things that thrive. You simply concentrate on them.
“In our environment, it is even more doable because we do not have a situation that prevents us from practising agriculture all year round.”
Ibrahim said that farmers could concentrate on crops that thrive more during the harmattan and vice versa during the rainy season.
He called for the adoption of long-term strategies, new methods and policies by stakeholders in the private and public sectors to achieve the goal.
A member of AFAN, Oluwatobi Akintan, listed some of the challenges mitigating all-year-round farming to include policy inconsistency, inadequate funding, poor irrigation systems and lack of political will.
He also said that poor water management systems posed a great threat to farming all year round.
They urged the Federal and State Governments to improve irrigation systems, encourage mechanised farming and create access roads to increase food production and security in the country.
“We do farming when the rains come, and the only thing that prevents you is torrential rain.
“During the cold or the harmattan we experience in the North, it will still not prevent anybody from engaging in dry-season farming. Farmers can produce a lot of wheat during the cold,” they said.