Barrister Fabian Awhen
While it be can contended without any fear of contradiction that a sizeable number of Nigerians have risen to the challenges posed by shortage of food and hunger, enough may not have been done in the area of preservation and food storage.
Rather the government appears to be observed with the urge to encourage citizens to go back to land, communities to go into communal farming, and corporate bodies to go into large-scale commercial agriculture.
Indeed, a cursory look at government budgets, at the Federal, State, and Local Government levels since the inception of the present democratic government and even beyond has not shown any consistent emphasis on food preservation to cushion the system in times of need to adequately cater for disaster victims.
The immediate consequence of this is that a large chunk of what is now produced on a grand scale is left to rot.
The rural areas where the bulk of the farm products are harvested still lack the initiative to develop cold rooms, silos, and other storage infrastructures thus still relying on primitive methods, which are defective in many ways.
Perhaps, this accounts for the abundance of certain agricultural products in certain periods of the year and the shortage of such items at other periods leading to the high pricing of such agricultural products in the markets.
This is not healthy for a nation, which is significantly dependent on agriculture for the survival of its teeming population.
It is against this background that we urge the various agencies entrusted with designing agricultural policies to include the development of storage facilities in their plan.
This has become pertinent now because as the nation grows in population, the natural resources particularly land become scarce arising from the lopsided growth ratio of the resources available and the demand for them.
In other words, while the population is growing in leaps and bounds, the land remains the same and, in addition, loses its value due to denigration, abuse, and wrong environmental management.
The consequence of this is that it may not be possible shortly to produce as much food for the teeming population let alone be able to afford the wastage that rot and pests cause to the abundance of agricultural produce we have at present.
What this entails, is to review our traditional preservation methods and either improve on them or replace them with modern technology.
In addition, the new methods should be taught to farmers and all those involved in agriculture.
Beyond this, it is high time we sought ways of converting agricultural products in their raw states to finished products.
In this wise, the abundant fruits in the state like Pineapple, Cashew, Mango, and Oranges could be canned and marketed as fruit juice.
This project should not be left in the hands of the government alone as evidenced by the establishment of a Pineapple Processing Factory in the Free Trade Zone.
Similarly, vegetables, cereals, and tubers can be processed into various forms like flour, cakes, and other finished State for both export and preservation.
Although there are no clear-cut statistics on the quantity of loss yearly to rot and pests, it is indubitable that the loss is enormous which explains why a large percentage of farmers in the state have remained very poor despite successful harvest yearly.
Indeed, their position can best be described as subsistent farming.
All said we see the need for this situation to be redressed to make farming a lucrative venture.
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