For what has now become a normal routine every Friday, I visited a popular market a few miles away from my house this past Friday where I went to buy some foodstuff for the family. Nowadays, one cannot really put a figure on the exact amount they will spend in the market because the inflation level is pretty high. Prices of goods sometimes move up by 50% within a few days. I was able to get some key household stuff and was particularly pleased with the yam I bought whose image is below.
I got the 5 tubers for three thousand five hundred naira (about $7) in a rather surprising event. The woman that sold to me confessed that we are in yam season and the price might even fall further in the coming weeks as the dry season approaches.
But then, a question that has always been disturbing my mind came up again - why are we suffering in Nigeria when we have got every resource to be among the richest countries in the world? In actual fact, Nigeria is blessed with arable land and an equally favourable climate for agricultural food production that can sustain a large part of the world. Assuming the arable land and favourable climate is all that we have got as a country, those are enough to put us among the richest in the world.
Alas, we combine the above resources with other resources such as gold, tin, bauxite, crude oil, and a host of other natural resources, and still, we are languishing in poverty as a country. For the record, Nigeria is rated as the poverty capital of the world according to the 2020 report of World Poverty Clock while the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics reported that 40% of the Nigerian total population wallowed in poverty in 2020 and figure is expected to rise going forward.
To be sincere in answering my own question on why we are so blessed yet so poor as a nation, the number one reason I will give is the mindset of average Nigerians. Very few people believe in producing while everyone just wants to keep consuming. No one wants to go to a farm but none can survive without food. Not even those that studied agriculture want to farm. Getting educated and seeking a white-collar job is the order of the day even in the face of massive unemployment that we are currently witnessing. Everyone believes in just taking their money to the market to buy food and will keep groaning as inflation bites hard and the purchasing power of money becomes significantly reduced.
Combine a consumption-mindset population with corrupt governance and what you are going to get is a disaster - the right word to describe the current Nigerian situation.
The solution
One key indicator of poverty is hunger and hunger is an indicator of inadequate food. Since all we need to do is bury some seeds in the ground, wait for them to germinate, nurture them to maturity, harvest, and start eating; I see no reason why we cannot farm in our own little way. Everyone does not need to go into commercial farming, but at least, we all can try to plant what we (and maybe, our household) eat. Every little effort adds to the country's bottom line.
This is what I decided to do this year. Just before the rainy season peaked, I got the opportunity of a little strip of land and decided to utilize it to plant corn. I first killed off the weed on the land using a herbicide and planted the maize a few days after. In less than 3 months, the maize germinated, matured, and produced a good yield.
I delayed the harvest a bit in order not to harvest too early but upon getting there one day just for some inspections, I discovered that rodents have started dealing massively with the maize cobs.
The following day, I quickly visited the farm again, with my family this time around, to harvest everything in order to salvage whatever is left. The harvest was not large because the maize plants can easily be counted via the tips of the finger. It was not much, but it was the little I could do. I took the harvest home, divided it into multiple divisions, and distributed some to my neighbours before boiling the rest. We ate and dine the entire day without having to think about using money to buy food. Is this what farmers feel when they harvest their produce?
Final Words
Nigeria as a country really has no business being poor with all the resources at its disposal. However, the mindset of people needs to change from consumption to production. The barest minimum we can produce is food and we collectively stand a lot to gain from small. medium, or large-scale food production.
Small and medium-scale food production by a large percentage of the population will ensure that we are self-sustainable in the area of food production and will no longer be fingered as a poverty-ridden country. Combine that with large-scale food production and we might be on our way to feeding the world. By the way, an estimated 30% of the global population lacked access to adequate food as of the year 2020 as reported by the World Bank. If you factor in the multiplier effects of the COVID19 pandemic, that figure might double this year alone.
We have got the natural resources, all we just need to do is put our asses to work, if not for anything, for our own stomach.