The Federal Government has expressed regret over the neglect of the various farm settlements established by the late premier of the defunct western region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, for nearly 40 years by the previous administrations in the country.
The farm settlements were created by Awolowo for the training of young and ageing farmers only and for the production and distribution of farm produce in the South West zone.
The Minister of Agricultural and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, noted that since the discovery of oil and gas in Nigeria, successive administrations had abandoned the farm settlement project, thereby contributing to the economic recession experienced by the country.
Ogbeh, who spoke at the Federal University Of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State, said it was high time the Nigerian government concentrated on farming to provide food for future generations.
“The farm settlements of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, I have visited many of them. They were abandoned for nearly 40 years. As we went through change of regime, one coup after the other, those governments were no longer interested in agriculture. After all, there was oil and gas. Why waste your time on the farm if your check can come every month. That is exactly where Nigeria started dying from,” he said.
The minister, who said no restructuring could take place in the country without making agriculture a priority, urged the Federal Government to give the state governments autonomy over their revenue, taxes and mineral resources.
He said, “I don’t think we need to worry about that, when talking about agriculture, that we need some restructuring in Nigeria. We have to take a look at the constitution; as it is, certain things should be left for states to handle, minerals, for instance.
“let the states have more autonomy to do certain things, control their revenue, pay their taxes where they should, but manage their resources as much as possible and let the Federal Government take over the resources like the Army, police and whatever the matter can be debated in a very matured manner.”
Ogbeh, however, noted that the Federal Government was planning to restructure the Bank of Agriculture to enable farmers to access loan from the bank at five per cent interest rate in order to ease the difficulty of farmers in collecting loans.
