HOW DO WE SAVE OURSELVES!!
A serious issue in Africa is our food security and the problem is not us farming or having enough farmers in fact a lot of local farmers are even starting to lose the little client base of small industrial and Agro allied firms due to this issues.
I want us to look at this from this vision, let's say, you have a business that sells locally made sand (yes i said what I said, it's an analogy and it's me so it must be crazy 😂) and you produce more sand than you sell what happens you get stuck right. Now replace that sand with vegetables, fruits and cash and food crops and imagine the seller to be a wide market of African traders especially in a country like Nigeria where most citizens would consume anything foreign no matter how bad the condition is than to support their fellow indigenous people, thus reducing our international trade and revenues and diminishing our economy all in the name of class and to seem "posh".
In my work here, today, I'm not attacking the government or international firms no, I am here to basically address the issue of overabundant harvest and whether it's a wastage and if possible or how it can be turned into a sustainable issue to the food security in our continent.
Africa is an agrobased continent and this is because we are naturally gifted by God but however, industrialization and imitation of our colonial masters and other advanced countries has stopped us from reaching out potential as a continent and now even the agriculture that is meant to be our bigger asset is now being threatened by international food suppliers and people preferring to consume inorganic and packaged food and now instead of farmers to sell their produce it keeps on piling up in their store houses and eventually they are forced to sell such produce for way less than they ought to go for, thus, putting them in a state of financial loss and crisis, not to talk of the high cost of farming materials, nationwide insecurity, little to no aid from the government and as a result of this, every year farmers go bankrupt and leave the business for things that will give them "greener pastures". (Literally I mean 😂).
How can we solve all this issues? Because I mean it's getting out of hand imagine not being able to reap an amount not proportionate to what you sowed. Okay okay enough with the agricultural jokes 😂.
The first thing to do is to get the support of the government for local farmers and agriculture in Nigeria. The Ministries in the Federal Government and State Governments should own up to their responsibilities and protect the farmers, subsidize the rate or even provide the materials for the farmers. What is better than working in an environment where you are actually valued and recognized.
Secondly, the government should assist the farmers in getting standard storage facilities because once the food produce are safely stored and kept, they would be protected from pests and dangerous vermin and vectors of disease which not only reduce the price of the produce but also ruin the quality of the crops.
Further, there should be encouragement of agro-allied industries and local manufacturing in African Countries, once we actually have our own facilities we would be free from all sorts of imperialism and our economies will become stronger and the stronger our economies the better Africa will be just by doing one thing, ensuring food security because the yourba man would say Ati Je Atimu ni gbo gbo wan baka.
Imagine all the jobs that could be created, all the lives that could be saved, all the people who could be permanently alievated from poverty, all the gains we would make from increased export and reduced import of food. So before you order that Chinese food or those packaged things remember that if we grow organically we can grow safer and wealthier together as one Big Continent.
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