‘Use mechanised farming to attract young people to agric’

Charles Asadu, professor of soil science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in Enugu State, has urged government at all levels use to mechanise agriculture as a tool to attract young people to the farms and change the economic narrative.

Professor Asadu gave the advise while speaking on “Agricultural Policies, Programmes and Smallholder Farmers Systems vis-a-vis Food Security in Nigeria,” at the 2017 University Press Plc’s Authors’ Forum lecture in Ibadan, Oyo State, recently.

He called on the government to map the country’s soil structure so that would-be farmers can have access to information on what to plant where and at what time of the year. He said Nigeria’s food problem is not insurmountable if adequate attention is paid to agricultural processes.

According to him, farming techniques passed down from forefathers are no longer tenable in a modern world and unless conscious effort is made to transition to mechanised farming, young people would continue to give farming cold shoulders. He noted that government has tended to go along with smallholders’ age-old farming techniques and has done nothing to revolutionise them to meet with modern demands.