Antti Ritvonen, country manager and chief executive officer, Dizengoff Nigeria has said that for the country to build a virile agricultural sector and ensure it has all it takes to feed itself, farmers must farm with tractors combined with knowledge based best practices.
Speaking during the company’s farmers field day held recently in Ilorin, Kwara state, Ritvonen identified low level of agricultural mechanisation as the biggest challenge of farmers in the country, stating that it has continued to limit their capacity to expand cultivation areas and perform timely operations.
“Nigeria has all it takes to feed itself, Africa and other regions of the world, provided mechanization is combined with knowledge-based best practices in modern agriculture,” the CEO said.
He noted that the country needs to train farmers on latest innovations in the sector, while urging the government to provide sizeable level of resource commitment for the sector.
Ritvonen added that farmers need to realize that agribusiness is highly profitable if it can be done right, that is, seeing it as a serious investment that had the potential to bring great returns.
He reiterated the readiness of Dizengoff to partner with the state government, agencies, corporate and individual farmers on the modern technologies, equipment and inputs for a more prosperous Nigeria.
Anu Ibiwoye, special adviser to the Kwara State governor on Agriculture & Rural Water Support Services, claimed that agriculture was paramount in the agenda of the state and that the state was moving from subsistence food production to commercial agriculture especially in cashew, shea butter nuts and cassava production, amongst others.
Also speaking during the farmers’ field day, Simeon Opowoye, permanent secretary in the state ministry of agric, added that manual agriculture was ineffective, expensive, intensive and extensive, and making it irrelevant in the modern age of food production.
At the forum, Dizengoff exposed participants who were drawn from the corporate agric firms, the state government and the smallholders’ farmers to a wide variety of innovations in agricultural mechanization and technologies.
These includes greenhouse technology, drip irrigation, cost effective tractors, selective weed control chemicals and battery powered sprayer and irrigators, which combine to make farming commercial, industrial and revolutionary.
Oscar Walumbe, integrated project country manager-greenhouse unit of Dizengoff, said “greenhouses help to bridge the gap between weather extremes to stabilize vegetable production”.
He advised farmers never to produce what they like but what the market demands, saying greenhouses help farmers use less resources by getting greater produce and higher return on investment.
Josephine Okojie
