By Our correspondent
The Founder/CEO of JR Farms Limited, Olawale Rotimi Opeyemi, has disclosed that Nigeria may experience a more severe food scarcity following the high rate of insecurity in the country leading to shutting down of farming activities and businesses across the country.
Opeyemi who raised the alarm during a courtesy visit to his office in Lagos by the Nigeria Association of Agricultural Journalists (NAAJ), said farmers in the country have since abandoned their farms, and a lot of businesses have equally closed shop owing to the intractable security situation.
“We farmers are no longer safe. For instance, I can’t freely and regularly visit my garri processing factory, located in one of the states in the west, for fear of being profiled by criminals. Besides the insecurity problem, there is an infrastructure gap, and the cost of production has gone way out of hand as many businesses cannot afford the huge cost of power to run their equipment,” he said.
For the Agriculture sector to make meaningful progress, the Agribusiness expert asked the government to adopt a more viable approach in support of the sector, noting that the current loan support scheme approach is not ideal as it is being hijacked by other interest groups.
His words: “The government's approach needs to change as it relates to supporting the agricultural sector and other businesses. There is a need to identify specific sectors of interest and businesses to scale up productivity through direct support. The government also has to invest more in the enabling environment; security, roads, power, and transportation, among others.”
The JR Farms boss underscored the importance of greater investment in value addition to ensure that farmers get better returns on their investments, as obtainable in countries like; Rwanda, South Africa, and others. “There are a lot of gains in processing, as it is in value addition that more direct and indirect jobs are created.” he noted.
JR Farms with net worth of about US$5 million, engages in Agribusiness across countries in Africa and Europe with farms in Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia, Ivory Coast and other locations producing various commodities ranging from garri, cocoa to coffee. The company is also involved in food exportation to the US, Canada and other western countries.
As part of JP Farm’s effort to promote agriculture in Nigeria, Opeyemi said the company is in partnership with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and had launched a youth oriented agriculture scheme in 2020, to empower startups with about $5,000 each in six businesses with equity participation of about $21,000.
