Blocking food supply to the south is mere senselessness and waste of time. The south have good soil but plenty lazy people who will run to farm once prices go up.
Evidence in my farm village is such that, more lands have been open up for vegetables, yam and other cash crop cultivation.
At 5 different farmland location, i dug a well and these wells had been serving 4 villages in the past 5years without any issue of drying up during dry season. But this dry season, due to influx of people to the interior villages, we have had three of the wells dried up. I discussed with my workers and we laugh over it noting the reason behind such situation. The villages have more people this year who are back to the farm.
Let me also reiterate the point that we have many people from Benin Republic, Togo and Niger who are down south doing serious farming in Nigeria. So, each time i read people saying the south will suffer i just laugh.
Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State borrowed money for Agriculture at the Beginning of his Administration,; today, no Single EFo (vegetable) or Agbado koro kan (a cereal of maize) was produced. Botswana maize nko?
No doubt, price will go up because suppliers will need to make profit but it wont last as more people are already cultivating the ground at the same time. Soon, there will be surplus and then, a state of equilibriums for demand and supply. Its only a matter of time. Foodstuff isnt petroleum product.
I pity whoever is advising the Northern farmers association because, there is nothing sown in the south that wont grow.
Abeg, let the hyped and deceptive impression of the North continue. We are not the same. The southern people can endure pain unlike the North. Any small pain, the North and its people start begging for alms unlike the south, we wont, we die there!!!
No shaking!!!
Akande Akin Sanyaolu is an agriculturist, writes from Ibadan Oyo State
