A case study of Nigerian Rural Youth.
By John Uzeshi Peter
Programme Manager, Improving Rural Agricultural Production in Kaduna State, Nigeria.
An NGO trying to identify challenges faced by Kaduna state, rural farmers and looking for a way of solving them.
Agriculture is important to the development of any nation. Rural youth are the future of agricultural production. Their engagement today determines how much food we will produce in the future. Their actions will also define how food production impacts the environment.
"As long as young people aren't engaged in the sector, it will continue to suffer. As long as we will try make things for the youth without engaging them, nothing will change" Aliness Mumba, South Africa.
In Nigeria, the attitude of youth towards agriculture as a profession has been reported to be negative and this is partly responsible for the low level of agricultural production in the country. However in Nigeria some of the challenges face by rural youth aged 15 - 17 neglecting the agricultural sector includes:
- Herdmen and farmers clashes: Normadic livestock farmers often clash with crop farmers, in Nigeria many lives has been lost many properties destroy as a result of the clashes. Use crop farmers claim that the Normadic livestock farmers allow their livestock to invade on the crop farms feeding and destroying the crops planted, as that result to violence and many times killing and destruction of property.
- Poverty: In today Nigeria, one of the Major Problems of Food Production is Poverty. On the other hand, one of the Simplest and a Doubtless Truth that you can easily Know about Nigeria is the fact that over 75% of Her Rural Dwellers are Full-time Farmers. But to me, Nigerians honestly are not really lacking Food. What they really lack is the money to buy the Food; the money to produce the food; and, or even the money to Produce small piece of land to grow the food.
- Illiteracy: The greatest number of Dedicated full time farmers in Nigeria can neither Read nor Write. The Local Farmers there are even as Uninformed as they lack Modern Agricultural Education.
- Use of manual farm tools/Methods: An average Nigeria farmer is still making use of only the same Out-dated Manual Farm Tools like Cutlass and hoes their fore-fathers used since many Centuries ago. Their use of Archaic and out dated tools and techniques, constitutes a very great set back in the country food and agricultural out puts.
- Lack of social amenities: The lack of social amenities like road, water, electricity, hospitals etc has been a course of concern as the rural farming communities in Nigeria neither good road nor hygiene drinking water as people still fetch drinking water from the streams, little wonder, then that water borne diseases are still causing premature deaths in the countryside. And because of lack of good road farmers go through hell to evacuate their farm produce to the market.
- Lack of food storage and processing facilities: Many Delicious and Juicy Fruits, Vegetables, and cash crops are largely Produced from Nigeria's Local Farming Communities. But do you know that a very great Percentage of these Delicious Organic Farm Produce often get Damaged and, or Wasted before they reach their Final Consumers? In this kind of situation, one of the Major Problems that is facing the Helpless Local Farmers here, is the lack of Adequate Food Storage or Processing Facilities.
- Lack of industries: Another point is the near-total absence of industries, small, medium or large scale. Absence of industries and lack of social amenities are the main reasons why the youth abandoned the villages in search of livelihood in the urban centres. The youth are mostly poor and do not have support from the government and, or donor agencies in either training, supply of farming materials not to talk about access to loan.
With all this challenges facing the rural youth aged 15 - 17, it is better and important to motivate the youth to develop interest in farming and rural life through vocational and teaching of agriculture from the grassroots in schools so that they will be able to farm on their own. Youth are the greatest assets that any Nation can have, not only that they are legitimately and actually the greatest investment for a country's development, Fariude (1999) define youth as the time a person's latent powers and attributes are developed to their highest potential, when intellect is at its sharpest and energy is at it promising. Fadeyomi (1998) Observed that viable rural development could not be achieved when there is sustained growth in rural income and standards of living which could be brought about primarily from agriculture.
To address the challenges face by rural youth aged 15 - 17 can include:
- The strengthening of extension service to work close with the rural youth farmers to improve their productivity through active participation in their farming activities.
- The rural youth should be empowered to actively engage into full time agricultural production rather than seasonal farmers.
- Agricultural vocational centres should be establish in rural communities to educate the youth on knowledge of modern farming and preparing to access a decent work.
- The Governments and, or stakeholders provide modern machines and equipment to the rural farmers of hiring as most of the rural farmers can not be able to purchase those machines considering the cost.
- The Governments and, or stakeholders should provide the rural areas with social amenities. Lack of social amenities makes living in the rural areas difficult and unattractive to the youth.
- The Governments and, or stakeholders should provide processing and storage facilities so as to reduce the waste and damage of fruits and crops before reaching consumers.
- Small and medium scale industries should be sited in the rural areas so as the rural youth will gain knowledge of both farming and working to have their own someday.
The policies and programmes to overcome this challenges is to fully empower the rural youth farmers, Government should ensure equal access to economic opportunities. It is however up to each citizen to take advantage of them or ignore them.
The principle objectives of citizen economic empowerment should be expansion of income and employment, generating activities for as many people as possible, without sacrificing efficiency.
Therefore, economic empowerment strategies should generally include:
- Financial intervention; in order to assist rural youth farmers.
- Enterprise development for citizens (increase access to skills, business and management training and improved production technologies).
- Training and education consistent with skill requirements in the economy.
- The Governments and, or stakeholders should pursue policies that could increase access to loans for financing agricultural production by youth who are enterprising.
The most binding capacity constraints when evaluating policies and programmes are:
- Lack of continuity of Government policies and programmes.
- Lack of direct policies in addressing the challenges faced by farmers.
- Harvest lost and storage lost has been old as agriculture itself but farmer are still face with the challenge will the Governments and, or stakeholders create ways of dealing with that challenge and many other face by rural farmers?
The education and vocational training can be improve in the rural areas to support adolescents to productively engage in agriculture through demonstration farms, where the youth will be encourage to have a small farms where they will grow crops or rear animals which will be supervise by their teacher and, or vocational trainers, like a concept I want to develop that is call, "Little Garden today, Big Forest tomorrow" which means, if a child/adolescent will be encourage to start farming at early age will grow to have Big farm in the future.
The most effective approach should be that the both the National, State and Local Governments and, or stakeholders should encourage the rural youth aged 15 - 17 by providing them support like:
- Improve seeds and breeds.
- Provision of soft loans and grants.
- Provide qualitative extension service.
- Subsidise farming materials like the fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides etcetera.
- Provide a market for their goods and services.
- Address the the issues of conflict of Crops farmers and the herdmen.
- Improve their knowledge information and education.
- Create a good and easy access to land.
- Encourage the rural youth to join or create association or cooperative.
- Provide processing and storage facilities or buy off access crops produce by the Farmers at every harvest season.
- The Governments should get young people involve at all level of the value chain to boost their opportunities.
Have a fruitful discussion.
John Uzeshi Peter
For Improving Rural Agricultural Production in Kaduna State Nigeria.
John Uzeshi Peter