What is the cost of living in your area? Tell us about the amount you spend day-to-day on feeding, transport, and other major areas of your life. Do you feel things would be better if you changed location? Besides that, what could make life a little bit easier for you?”
There has been a constant increase in the prices of things in my country based on an unstable and ever-fluctuating price in petroleum products, which are very keen on running the economy. This has had a vast negative effect on the cost of living in the country, and all for the fact that my country is more of a consumer economy than it is a producer economy.
As a student of agriculture, I am well aware that most of the input materials, like seeds, nutrients, and irrigation facilities, among others, are imported, especially when it comes to fruity vegetables like tomatoes and peppers. Outside the fact that farmers have to invest so much in this input, the price of petroleum products like fuel and diesel has become more expensive.
Farmers need light on the farm to enable them to pump water and also to store most of the input materials, especially seed and harvested products. This also goes for some processed harvested products.
Due to the severity of this farm product, they have become expensive over time. The cost of transporting these products from farms to markets where they are accessible to final consumers is another reason why food commodities have become expensive.
When I got admission into the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, in 2020, the price of getting bikes from the farthest off-campus location to the school gate was one hundred and fifty naira, and shuttle buses were as low as fifty naira to seventy naira, but right now bikes are charging between seven hundred naira and one thousand naira for the same distance, and shuttle buses charge four hundred naira for a distance that was once one hundred and fifty naira.
The price of foodstuffs here is just so outrageous that most students do not plan their shopping on the day of the local market, which is located in town. The current economic recession has also made the prices of gadgets skyrocket, leaving a lot of people unable to afford new gadgets like smartphones and laptops.
A while ago I planted tomatoes, and during this period I was able to save up the money I would have used for tomatoes. I was also able to sell some, and I took the rest home, which we used for the Christmas and New Year celebration last year. This is one method of survival whereby households can grow some of the basic food needed.
Learning high-income-paying skills to enable me to earn in foreign currencies is the goal right now. As for a change of location, the prices of petroleum products are almost the same all over the nation with little or no price variation, which has made transition in all locations skyrocket, but since I am still a student, I don't anticipate changing my location anytime soon until after graduation.
Thank you so much for stopping by. This is my entry for hl-exclusive, w159e1.
